The Wax Museum. The Sentry and the Devil

Aleksei Nikolaevich Maslov, better known by his literary pseudonym Bezhitsky (stress on the first syllable), was born in 1852 into a family of a military man. He graduated from a military gymnasium, the Nikolayev Engineering School, and then the Nikolayev Engineering Academy.
In the summer of 1917 he retired with the rank of engineer-general.
He debuted in literature in 1874 as the author of humorous notes, and later became a military correspondent. The collection of "army" stories "Soldiers at War" brought Bezhitsky fame; his war stories were especially appreciated by A. P. Chekhov. At the same time, Bezhitsky was among the first to recognize signs of great talent in Chekhov’s works themselves.
The military theme remains the main one in his creative output (besides stories and sketches, under his real surname he published several books on fortification and military history), but in the late 19th and early 20th centuries Bezhitsky also wrote fantastic, “mysterious” stories—and even released an entire fantasy collection—"The Unknown... Fantastic Stories," which had three editions in 1914!