E. Nesbit

“ Vincent took his arm suddenly, and he started with what was almost a shriek.
“What a nervous chap you are!” said Vincent complacently, as they regained the street where the lights were, and the sound of voices and the movement of live human beings—all that warms and awakens nerves almost paralysed by the life in death of waxen immobility.
“I don’t know,” said Edward. “Let’s have a vermouth, shall we? There’s something uncanny about those wax things. They’re like life—but they’re much more like death. ”

“ Edward had shared Vincent’s room, and Vincent, alone of all men, shared Edward’s secret.
And now, in Paris, Rose speeding away towards Cannes, Vincent said: “Let’s look in at the Musée Grévin.”
The Musée Grévin is a wax-work show. Your mind, at the word, flies instantly to the excellent exhibition founded by the worthy Madame Tussaud, and you think you know what wax-works mean. But you are wrong. The exhibition of Madame Tussaud—in these days, at any rate—is the work of bourgeois for a bourgeois class. The Musée Grévin contains the work of artists for a nation of artists. ”

“ So he went in among the crowd, and looked about among the wax-works for a place to hide in. He was not in the least afraid of these lifeless images. He had always been able to control his nervous tremors. He was not even afraid of being frightened, which, by the way, is the worst fear of all. As one looks at the room of the poor little Dauphin, one sees a door to the left. It opens out of the room on to blackness. There were few people in the gallery. Vincent watched, and in a moment when he was alone he stepped over the barrier and through this door. ”

“ I suppose you’ll never outgrow that childish scare.”
“You might shut up about that,” said Edward shortly.
“Oh, it’s nothing to be ashamed of; some women are afraid of mice or spiders. I say, does Rose know you’re a coward?”
“Vincent!”
“No offence, old boy. One may as well call a spade a spade. Of course, you’ve got tons of moral courage, and all that. But you are afraid of the dark—and wax-works!” ”

“ He got up and struck a match, refused his eyes the sight of the corpse whose waxen face he had felt in the blackness, and made his way through the crowd of figures. By the match’s flicker they seemed to make way for him, to turn their heads to look after him. The match lasted till he got to a turn of the rock-hewn passage. His next match showed him the burial scene: the little, thin body of the martyr, palm in hand, lying on the rock floor in patient waiting, the grave-digger, the mourners. Some standing, some kneeling, one crouched on the ground. ”

“ And now he had allowed himself to be amused by the thought of something that should creep up behind him in the dark, he might possibly be nervous in that passage round which, if wax-works could move, the soldier might have come.
“By Jove!” he said, “one might easily frighten oneself by just fancying things. Suppose there were a back way from Marat’s bath-room, and instead of the soldier Marat came out of his bath, with his wet towels stained with blood, and dabbed them against your neck.” ”