The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: At the Wax Museum Summary & Analysis

Last night in a dream, Bauby writes, he visited the Musée Grévin—Paris’s wax museum. Rather than wax figures on exhibit there, however, Bauby found the faces of the male and female nurses and orderlies who care for him at Berck. Many of these staff members “terrified” Bauby during his early days at Berck, and even drove him to rage and anger as they failed to care for him in the ways he needed to be cared for—but now, he understands that they are doing their best at a very “delicate mission.” Bauby has now nicknamed many of these attendants, and he has developed a fondness for several of them—a fondness he only realizes during his dream about looking upon their waxen faces.

In the dream, Bauby wandered from a hall containing all the nurses and orderlies to a hall which replicated his own room—only there was no figure of himself in the bed “just a hollow in the middle of the yellow sheets.” Nevertheless, “watchers” rendered in wax lined either side of the bed, looking down on the emptiness. His friends, his partner Florence, and many loved ones looked down, projecting “great tenderness” and “a shared sorrow.” Bauby moved on from the exhibit, hoping to see the rest of the “museum,” but was awakened by a real nurse flashing a light in his face and offering him a sleeping pill.