Bartleby, the Scrivener
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BARTLEBY, THE
SCRIVENER.
by Herman Melville
A STORY OF
WALL-STREET.
I am a rather elderly man. The nature
of my avocations for the last thirty years has brought me into more than
ordinary contact with what would seem an interesting and somewhat singular set
of men, of whom as yet nothing that I know of has ever been written:—I mean the
law-copyists or scriveners. I have known very many of them, professionally and
privately, and if I pleased, could relate divers histories, at which
good-natured gentlemen might smile, and sentimental souls might weep. But I
waive the biographies of all other scriveners for a few passages in the life of
Bartleby, who was a scrivener of the strangest I ever saw or heard of. While of
other law-copyists I might write the complete life, of Bartleby nothing of that
sort can be done. I believe that no materials exist for a full and satisfactory
biography of this man. It is an irreparable loss to literature. Bartleby was
one of those beings of whom nothing is ascertainable, except from the original
sources, and in his case those are very small. What my own astonished eyes saw
of Bartleby, that is all I know of him, except, indeed, one vague report
which will appear in the sequel.
Ere introducing the scrivener, as he
first appeared to me, it is fit I make some mention of myself, my employees,
my business, my chambers, and general surroundings; because some such
description is indispensable to an adequate understanding of the chief
character about to be presented.
Imprimis: I am a man who, from his
youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way
of life is the best. Hence, though I belong to a profession proverbially
energetic and nervous, even to turbulence, at times, yet nothing of that sort
have I ever suffered to invade my peace. I am one of those unambitious lawyers
who never addresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause; but in
the cool tranquility of a snug retreat, do a snug business among rich men's
bonds and mortgages and title-deeds. All who know me, consider me an eminently safe
man. The late John Jacob Astor, a personage little given to poetic enthusiasm,
had no hesitation in pronouncing my first grand point to be prudence; my next,
method. I do not speak it in vanity, but simply record the fact, that I was not
unemployed in my profession by the late John Jacob Astor; a name which, I
admit, I love to repeat, for it hath a rounded and orbicular sound to it, and
rings like unto bullion. I will freely add, that I was not insensible to the
late John Jacob Astor's good opinion.
Some time prior to the period at which
this little history begins, my avocations had been largely increased. The good
old office, now extinct in the State of New York, of a Master in Chancery, had
been conferred upon me. It was not a very arduous office, but very pleasantly
remunerative. I seldom lose my temper; much more seldom indulge in dangerous
indignation at wrongs and outrages; but I must be permitted to be rash here and
declare, that I consider the sudden and violent abrogation of the office of
Master in Chancery, by the new Constitution, as a—premature act; inasmuch as I
had counted upon a life-lease of the profits, whereas I only received those of
a few short years. But this is by the way.
My chambers were up stairs at
No.—Wall-street. At one end they looked upon the white wall of the interior of
a spacious sky-light shaft, penetrating the building from top to bottom. This
view might have been considered rather tame than otherwise, deficient in what
landscape painters call "life." But if so, the view from the other end
of my chambers offered, at least, a contrast, if nothing more. In that
direction my windows commanded an unobstructed view of a lofty brick wall,
black by age and everlasting shade; which wall required no spy-glass to bring
out its lurking beauties, but for the benefit of all near-sighted spectators,
was pushed up to within ten feet of my window panes. Owing to the great height
of the surrounding buildings, and my chambers being on the second floor, the
interval between this wall and mine not a little resembled a huge square
cistern.
At the period just preceding the advent
of Bartleby, I had two persons as copyists in my employment, and a promising
lad as an office-boy. First, Turkey; second, Nippers; third, Ginger Nut. These
may seem names, the like of which are not usually found in the Directory. In
truth they were nicknames, mutually conferred upon each other by my three
clerks, and were deemed expressive of their respective persons or characters.
Turkey was a short, pursy Englishman of about my own age, that is, somewhere
not far from sixty. In the morning, one might say, his face was of a fine
florid hue, but after twelve o'clock, meridian—his dinner hour—it blazed like a
grate full of Christmas coals; and continued blazing—but, as it were, with a
gradual wane—till 6 o'clock, P.M. or thereabouts, after which I saw no more of
the proprietor of the face, which gaining its meridian with the sun, seemed to
set with it, to rise, culminate, and decline the following day, with the like
regularity and undiminished glory. There are many singular coincidences I have
known in the course of my life, not the least among which was the fact, that
exactly when Turkey displayed his fullest beams from his red and radiant
countenance, just then, too, at that critical moment, began the daily period
when I considered his business capacities as seriously disturbed for the
remainder of the twenty-four hours. Not that he was absolutely idle, or averse
to business then; far from it. The difficulty was, he was apt to be altogether
too energetic. There was a strange, inflamed, flurried, flighty recklessness of
activity about him. He would be incautious in dipping his pen into his
inkstand. All his blots upon my documents, were dropped there after twelve
o'clock, meridian. Indeed, not only would he be reckless and sadly given to
making blots in the afternoon, but some days he went further, and was rather
noisy. At such times, too, his face flamed with augmented blazonry, as if
cannel coal had been heaped on anthracite. He made an unpleasant racket with
his chair; spilled his sand-box; in mending his pens, impatiently split them
all to pieces, and threw them on the floor in a sudden passion; stood up and
leaned over his table, boxing his papers about in a most indecorous manner,
very sad to behold in an elderly man like him. Nevertheless, as he was in many
ways a most valuable person to me, and all the time before twelve o'clock,
meridian, was the quickest, steadiest creature too, accomplishing a great deal
of work in a style not easy to be matched—for these reasons, I was willing to
overlook his eccentricities, though indeed, occasionally, I remonstrated with
him. I did this very gently, however, because, though the civilest, nay, the
blandest and most reverential of men in the morning, yet in the afternoon he
was disposed, upon provocation, to be slightly rash with his tongue, in fact,
insolent. Now, valuing his morning services as I did, and resolved not to lose
them; yet, at the same time made uncomfortable by his inflamed ways after
twelve o'clock; and being a man of peace, unwilling by my admonitions to call
forth unseemly retorts from him; I took upon me, one Saturday noon (he was
always worse on Saturdays), to hint to him, very kindly, that perhaps now that
he was growing old, it might be well to abridge his labors; in short, he need
not come to my chambers after twelve o'clock, but, dinner over, had best go
home to his lodgings and rest himself till teatime. But no; he insisted upon
his afternoon devotions. His countenance became intolerably fervid, as he
oratorically assured me—gesticulating with a long ruler at the other end of the
room—that if his services in the morning were useful, how indispensable, then,
in the afternoon?
"With submission, sir," said
Turkey on this occasion, "I consider myself your right-hand man. In the
morning I but marshal and deploy my columns; but in the afternoon I put myself
at their head, and gallantly charge the foe, thus!"—and he made a violent
thrust with the ruler.
"But the blots, Turkey,"
intimated I.
"True,—but, with submission, sir,
behold these hairs! I am getting old. Surely, sir, a blot or two of a warm
afternoon is not to be severely urged against gray hairs. Old age—even if it
blot the page—is honorable. With submission, sir, we both are getting
old."
This appeal to my fellow-feeling was
hardly to be resisted. At all events, I saw that go he would not. So I made up
my mind to let him stay, resolving, nevertheless, to see to it, that during the
afternoon he had to do with my less important papers.
Nippers, the second on my list, was a
whiskered, sallow, and, upon the whole, rather piratical-looking young man of
about five and twenty. I always deemed him the victim of two evil
powers—ambition and indigestion. The ambition was evinced by a certain
impatience of the duties of a mere copyist, an unwarrantable usurpation of
strictly professional affairs, such as the original drawing up of legal
documents. The indigestion seemed betokened in an occasional nervous testiness
and grinning irritability, causing the teeth to audibly grind together over
mistakes committed in copying; unnecessary maledictions, hissed, rather than
spoken, in the heat of business; and especially by a continual discontent with
the height of the table where he worked. Though of a very ingenious mechanical
turn, Nippers could never get this table to suit him. He put chips under it,
blocks of various sorts, bits of pasteboard, and at last went so far as to
attempt an exquisite adjustment by final pieces of folded blotting paper. But
no invention would answer. If, for the sake of easing his back, he brought the
table lid at a sharp angle well up towards his chin, and wrote there like a man
using the steep roof of a Dutch house for his desk:—then he declared that it
stopped the circulation in his arms. If now he lowered the table to his
waistbands, and stooped over it in writing, then there was a sore aching in his
back. In short, the truth of the matter was, Nippers knew not what he wanted.
Or, if he wanted any thing, it was to be rid of a scrivener's table altogether.
Among the manifestations of his diseased ambition was a fondness he had for
receiving visits from certain ambiguous-looking fellows in seedy coats, whom he
called his clients. Indeed I was aware that not only was he, at times, considerable
of a ward-politician, but he occasionally did a little business at the
Justices' courts, and was not unknown on the steps of the Tombs. I have good
reason to believe, however, that one individual who called upon him at my
chambers, and who, with a grand air, he insisted was his client, was no other
than a dun, and the alleged title-deed, a bill. But with all his failings, and
the annoyances he caused me, Nippers, like his compatriot Turkey, was a very
useful man to me; wrote a neat, swift hand; and, when he chose, was not
deficient in a gentlemanly sort of deportment. Added to this, he always dressed
in a gentlemanly sort of way; and so, incidentally, reflected credit upon my
chambers. Whereas with respect to Turkey, I had much ado to keep him from being
a reproach to me. His clothes were apt to look oily and smell of eating-houses.
He wore his pantaloons very loose and baggy in summer. His coats were
execrable; his hat not to be handled. But while the hat was a thing of
indifference to me, inasmuch as his natural civility and deference, as a
dependent Englishman, always led him to doff it the moment he entered the room,
yet his coat was another matter. Concerning his coats, I reasoned with him; but
with no effect. The truth was, I suppose, that a man of so small an income,
could not afford to sport such a lustrous face and a lustrous coat at one and
the same time. As Nippers once observed, Turkey's money went chiefly for red
ink. One winter day I presented Turkey with a highly-respectable looking coat of
my own, a padded gray coat, of a most comfortable warmth, and which buttoned
straight up from the knee to the neck. I thought Turkey would appreciate the
favor, and abate his rashness and obstreperousness of afternoons. But no. I
verily believe that buttoning himself up in so downy and blanket-like a coat
had a pernicious effect upon him; upon the same principle that too much oats
are bad for horses. In fact, precisely as a rash, restive horse is said to feel
his oats, so Turkey felt his coat. It made him insolent. He was a man whom
prosperity harmed.
Though concerning the self-indulgent
habits of Turkey I had my own private surmises, yet touching Nippers I was well
persuaded that whatever might be his faults in other respects, he was, at
least, a temperate young man. But indeed, nature herself seemed to have been
his vintner, and at his birth charged him so thoroughly with an irritable,
brandy-like disposition, that all subsequent potations were needless. When I
consider how, amid the stillness of my chambers, Nippers would sometimes
impatiently rise from his seat, and stooping over his table, spread his arms
wide apart, seize the whole desk, and move it, and jerk it, with a grim,
grinding motion on the floor, as if the table were a perverse voluntary agent, intent
on thwarting and vexing him; I plainly perceive that for Nippers, brandy and
water were altogether superfluous.
It was fortunate for me that, owing to
its peculiar cause—indigestion—the irritability and consequent nervousness of
Nippers, were mainly observable in the morning, while in the afternoon he was
comparatively mild. So that Turkey's paroxysms only coming on about twelve
o'clock, I never had to do with their eccentricities at one time. Their fits
relieved each other like guards. When Nippers' was on, Turkey's was off; and vice
versa. This was a good natural arrangement under the circumstances.
Ginger Nut, the third on my list, was a
lad some twelve years old. His father was a carman, ambitious of seeing his son
on the bench instead of a cart, before he died. So he sent him to my office as
student at law, errand boy, and cleaner and sweeper, at the rate of one dollar
a week. He had a little desk to himself, but he did not use it much. Upon
inspection, the drawer exhibited a great array of the shells of various sorts
of nuts. Indeed, to this quick-witted youth the whole noble science of the law
was contained in a nut-shell. Not the least among the employments of Ginger
Nut, as well as one which he discharged with the most alacrity, was his duty as
cake and apple purveyor for Turkey and Nippers. Copying law papers being
proverbially dry, husky sort of business, my two scriveners were fain to
moisten their mouths very often with Spitzenbergs to be had at the numerous
stalls nigh the Custom House and Post Office. Also, they sent Ginger Nut very
frequently for that peculiar cake—small, flat, round, and very spicy—after
which he had been named by them. Of a cold morning when business was but dull,
Turkey would gobble up scores of these cakes, as if they were mere
wafers—indeed they sell them at the rate of six or eight for a penny—the scrape
of his pen blending with the crunching of the crisp particles in his mouth. Of
all the fiery afternoon blunders and flurried rashnesses of Turkey, was his
once moistening a ginger-cake between his lips, and clapping it on to a
mortgage for a seal. I came within an ace of dismissing him then. But he
mollified me by making an oriental bow, and saying—"With submission, sir,
it was generous of me to find you in stationery on my own account."
Now my original business—that of a
conveyancer and title hunter, and drawer-up of recondite documents of all
sorts—was considerably increased by receiving the master's office. There was
now great work for scriveners. Not only must I push the clerks already with me,
but I must have additional help. In answer to my advertisement, a motionless
young man one morning, stood upon my office threshold, the door being open, for
it was summer. I can see that figure now—pallidly neat, pitiably respectable,
incurably forlorn! It was Bartleby.
After a few words touching his
qualifications, I engaged him, glad to have among my corps of copyists a man of
so singularly sedate an aspect, which I thought might operate beneficially upon
the flighty temper of Turkey, and the fiery one of Nippers.
I should have stated before that ground
glass folding-doors divided my premises into two parts, one of which was
occupied by my scriveners, the other by myself. According to my humor I threw
open these doors, or closed them. I resolved to assign Bartleby a corner by the
folding-doors, but on my side of them, so as to have this quiet man within easy
call, in case any trifling thing was to be done. I placed his desk close up to
a small side-window in that part of the room, a window which originally had
afforded a lateral view of certain grimy back-yards and bricks, but which,
owing to subsequent erections, commanded at present no view at all, though it
gave some light. Within three feet of the panes was a wall, and the light came
down from far above, between two lofty buildings, as from a very small opening
in a dome. Still further to a satisfactory arrangement, I procured a high green
folding screen, which might entirely isolate Bartleby from my sight, though not
remove him from my voice. And thus, in a manner, privacy and society were
conjoined.
At first Bartleby did an extraordinary
quantity of writing. As if long famishing for something to copy, he seemed to
gorge himself on my documents. There was no pause for digestion. He ran a day
and night line, copying by sun-light and by candle-light. I should have been
quite delighted with his application, had he been cheerfully industrious. But
he wrote on silently, palely, mechanically.
It is, of course, an indispensable part
of a scrivener's business to verify the accuracy of his copy, word by word.
Where there are two or more scriveners in an office, they assist each other in
this examination, one reading from the copy, the other holding the original. It
is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair. I can readily imagine that to
some sanguine temperaments it would be altogether intolerable. For example, I
cannot credit that the mettlesome poet Byron would have contentedly sat down
with Bartleby to examine a law document of, say five hundred pages, closely
written in a crimpy hand.
Now and then, in the haste of business,
it had been my habit to assist in comparing some brief document myself, calling
Turkey or Nippers for this purpose. One object I had in placing Bartleby so
handy to me behind the screen, was to avail myself of his services on such
trivial occasions. It was on the third day, I think, of his being with me, and
before any necessity had arisen for having his own writing examined, that,
being much hurried to complete a small affair I had in hand, I abruptly called
to Bartleby. In my haste and natural expectancy of instant compliance, I sat
with my head bent over the original on my desk, and my right hand sideways, and
somewhat nervously extended with the copy, so that immediately upon emerging
from his retreat, Bartleby might snatch it and proceed to business without the
least delay.
In this very attitude did I sit when I
called to him, rapidly stating what it was I wanted him to do—namely, to
examine a small paper with me. Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when
without moving from his privacy, Bartleby in a singularly mild, firm voice,
replied, "I would prefer not to."
I sat awhile in perfect silence,
rallying my stunned faculties. Immediately it occurred to me that my ears had
deceived me, or Bartleby had entirely misunderstood my meaning. I repeated my
request in the clearest tone I could assume. But in quite as clear a one came
the previous reply, "I would prefer not to."
"Prefer not to," echoed I,
rising in high excitement, and crossing the room with a stride. "What do
you mean? Are you moon-struck? I want you to help me compare this sheet
here—take it," and I thrust it towards him.
"I would prefer not to," said
he.
I looked at him steadfastly. His face
was leanly composed; his gray eye dimly calm. Not a wrinkle of agitation
rippled him. Had there been the least uneasiness, anger, impatience or
impertinence in his manner; in other words, had there been any thing ordinarily
human about him, doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the
premises. But as it was, I should have as soon thought of turning my pale
plaster-of-paris bust of Cicero out of doors. I stood gazing at him awhile, as
he went on with his own writing, and then reseated myself at my desk. This is
very strange, thought I. What had one best do? But my business hurried me. I
concluded to forget the matter for the present, reserving it for my future
leisure. So calling Nippers from the other room, the paper was speedily
examined.
A few days after this, Bartleby
concluded four lengthy documents, being quadruplicates of a week's testimony
taken before me in my High Court of Chancery. It became necessary to examine
them. It was an important suit, and great accuracy was imperative. Having all
things arranged I called Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut from the next room,
meaning to place the four copies in the hands of my four clerks, while I should
read from the original. Accordingly Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut had taken
their seats in a row, each with his document in hand, when I called to Bartleby
to join this interesting group.
"Bartleby! quick, I am
waiting."
I heard a slow scrape of his chair legs
on the uncarpeted floor, and soon he appeared standing at the entrance of his
hermitage.
"What is wanted?" said he
mildly.
"The copies, the copies," said
I hurriedly. "We are going to examine them. There"—and I held towards
him the fourth quadruplicate.
"I would prefer not to," he
said, and gently disappeared behind the screen.
For a few moments I was turned into a
pillar of salt, standing at the head of my seated column of clerks. Recovering
myself, I advanced towards the screen, and demanded the reason for such
extraordinary conduct.
"Why do you refuse?"
"I would prefer not to."
With any other man I should have flown
outright into a dreadful passion, scorned all further words, and thrust him
ignominiously from my presence. But there was something about Bartleby that not
only strangely disarmed me, but in a wonderful manner touched and disconcerted
me. I began to reason with him.
"These are your own copies we are
about to examine. It is labor saving to you, because one examination will
answer for your four papers. It is common usage. Every copyist is bound to help
examine his copy. Is it not so? Will you not speak? Answer!"
"I prefer not to," he replied
in a flute-like tone. It seemed to me that while I had been addressing him, he
carefully revolved every statement that I made; fully comprehended the meaning;
could not gainsay the irresistible conclusions; but, at the same time, some
paramount consideration prevailed with him to reply as he did.
"You are decided, then, not to
comply with my request—a request made according to common usage and common
sense?"
He briefly gave me to understand that
on that point my judgment was sound. Yes: his decision was irreversible.
It is not seldom the case that when a
man is browbeaten in some unprecedented and violently unreasonable way, he
begins to stagger in his own plainest faith. He begins, as it were, vaguely to
surmise that, wonderful as it may be, all the justice and all the reason is on
the other side. Accordingly, if any disinterested persons are present, he turns
to them for some reinforcement for his own faltering mind.
"Turkey," said I, "what
do you think of this? Am I not right?"
"With submission, sir," said
Turkey, with his blandest tone, "I think that you are."
"Nippers," said I, "what
do you think of it?"
"I think I should kick him out of
the office."
(The reader of nice perceptions will
here perceive that, it being morning, Turkey's answer is couched in polite and
tranquil terms, but Nippers replies in ill-tempered ones. Or, to repeat a
previous sentence, Nippers' ugly mood was on duty and Turkey's off.)
"Ginger Nut," said I, willing
to enlist the smallest suffrage in my behalf, "what do you think of
it?"
"I think, sir, he's a little luny,"
replied Ginger Nut with a grin.
"You hear what they say,"
said I, turning towards the screen, "come forth and do your duty."
But he vouchsafed no reply. I pondered
a moment in sore perplexity. But once more business hurried me. I determined
again to postpone the consideration of this dilemma to my future leisure. With
a little trouble we made out to examine the papers without Bartleby, though at
every page or two, Turkey deferentially dropped his opinion that this proceeding
was quite out of the common; while Nippers, twitching in his chair with a
dyspeptic nervousness, ground out between his set teeth occasional hissing
maledictions against the stubborn oaf behind the screen. And for his (Nippers')
part, this was the first and the last time he would do another man's business
without pay.
Meanwhile Bartleby sat in his
hermitage, oblivious to every thing but his own peculiar business there.
Some days passed, the scrivener being
employed upon another lengthy work. His late remarkable conduct led me to
regard his ways narrowly. I observed that he never went to dinner; indeed that
he never went any where. As yet I had never of my personal knowledge known him
to be outside of my office. He was a perpetual sentry in the corner. At about
eleven o'clock though, in the morning, I noticed that Ginger Nut would advance
toward the opening in Bartleby's screen, as if silently beckoned thither by a
gesture invisible to me where I sat. The boy would then leave the office
jingling a few pence, and reappear with a handful of ginger-nuts which he
delivered in the hermitage, receiving two of the cakes for his trouble.
He lives, then, on ginger-nuts, thought
I; never eats a dinner, properly speaking; he must be a vegetarian then; but
no; he never eats even vegetables, he eats nothing but ginger-nuts. My mind
then ran on in reveries concerning the probable effects upon the human
constitution of living entirely on ginger-nuts. Ginger-nuts are so called
because they contain ginger as one of their peculiar constituents, and the
final flavoring one. Now what was ginger? A hot, spicy thing. Was Bartleby hot
and spicy? Not at all. Ginger, then, had no effect upon Bartleby. Probably he
preferred it should have none.
Nothing so aggravates an earnest person
as a passive resistance. If the individual so resisted be of a not inhumane
temper, and the resisting one perfectly harmless in his passivity; then, in the
better moods of the former, he will endeavor charitably to construe to his
imagination what proves impossible to be solved by his judgment. Even so, for
the most part, I regarded Bartleby and his ways. Poor fellow! thought I, he
means no mischief; it is plain he intends no insolence; his aspect sufficiently
evinces that his eccentricities are involuntary. He is useful to me. I can get
along with him. If I turn him away, the chances are he will fall in with some
less indulgent employer, and then he will be rudely treated, and perhaps driven
forth miserably to starve. Yes. Here I can cheaply purchase a delicious
self-approval. To befriend Bartleby; to humor him in his strange willfulness,
will cost me little or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually
prove a sweet morsel for my conscience. But this mood was not invariable with
me. The passiveness of Bartleby sometimes irritated me. I felt strangely goaded
on to encounter him in new opposition, to elicit some angry spark from him
answerable to my own. But indeed I might as well have essayed to strike fire
with my knuckles against a bit of Windsor soap. But one afternoon the evil
impulse in me mastered me, and the following little scene ensued:
"Bartleby," said I,
"when those papers are all copied, I will compare them with you."
"I would prefer not to."
"How? Surely you do not mean to
persist in that mulish vagary?"
No answer.
I threw open the folding-doors near by,
and turning upon Turkey and
Nippers, exclaimed in an excited manner—
Nippers, exclaimed in an excited manner—
"He says, a second time, he won't
examine his papers. What do you think of it, Turkey?"
It was afternoon, be it remembered.
Turkey sat glowing like a brass boiler, his bald head steaming, his hands
reeling among his blotted papers.
"Think of it?" roared Turkey;
"I think I'll just step behind his screen, and black his eyes for
him!"
So saying, Turkey rose to his feet and
threw his arms into a pugilistic position. He was hurrying away to make good
his promise, when I detained him, alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing
Turkey's combativeness after dinner.
"Sit down, Turkey," said I,
"and hear what Nippers has to say. What do you think of it, Nippers? Would
I not be justified in immediately dismissing Bartleby?"
"Excuse me, that is for you to
decide, sir. I think his conduct quite unusual, and indeed unjust, as regards
Turkey and myself. But it may only be a passing whim."
"Ah," exclaimed I, "you
have strangely changed your mind then—you speak very gently of him now."
"All beer," cried Turkey;
"gentleness is effects of beer—Nippers and I dined together to-day. You
see how gentle I am, sir. Shall I go and black his eyes?"
"You refer to Bartleby, I suppose.
No, not to-day, Turkey," I replied; "pray, put up your fists."
I closed the doors, and again advanced
towards Bartleby. I felt additional incentives tempting me to my fate. I burned
to be rebelled against again. I remembered that Bartleby never left the office.
"Bartleby," said I,
"Ginger Nut is away; just step round to the Post Office, won't you? (it
was but a three minute walk,) and see if there is any thing for me."
"I would prefer not to."
"You will not?"
"I prefer not."
I staggered to my desk, and sat there
in a deep study. My blind inveteracy returned. Was there any other thing in
which I could procure myself to be ignominiously repulsed by this lean,
penniless wight?—my hired clerk? What added thing is there, perfectly
reasonable, that he will be sure to refuse to do?
"Bartleby!"
No answer.
"Bartleby," in a louder tone.
No answer.
"Bartleby," I roared.
Like a very ghost, agreeably to the
laws of magical invocation, at the third summons, he appeared at the entrance
of his hermitage.
"Go to the next room, and tell
Nippers to come to me."
"I prefer not to," he
respectfully and slowly said, and mildly disappeared.
"Very good, Bartleby," said
I, in a quiet sort of serenely severe self-possessed tone, intimating the
unalterable purpose of some terrible retribution very close at hand. At the
moment I half intended something of the kind. But upon the whole, as it was
drawing towards my dinner-hour, I thought it best to put on my hat and walk
home for the day, suffering much from perplexity and distress of mind.
Shall I acknowledge it? The conclusion
of this whole business was, that it soon became a fixed fact of my chambers,
that a pale young scrivener, by the name of Bartleby, and a desk there; that he
copied for me at the usual rate of four cents a folio (one hundred words); but
he was permanently exempt from examining the work done by him, that duty being
transferred to Turkey and Nippers, one of compliment doubtless to their
superior acuteness; moreover, said Bartleby was never on any account to be
dispatched on the most trivial errand of any sort; and that even if entreated
to take upon him such a matter, it was generally understood that he would
prefer not to—in other words, that he would refuse pointblank.
As days passed on, I became
considerably reconciled to Bartleby. His steadiness, his freedom from all
dissipation, his incessant industry (except when he chose to throw himself into
a standing revery behind his screen), his great stillness, his unalterableness of
demeanor under all circumstances, made him a valuable acquisition. One prime
thing was this,—he was always there;—first in the morning, continually
through the day, and the last at night. I had a singular confidence in his
honesty. I felt my most precious papers perfectly safe in his hands. Sometimes
to be sure I could not, for the very soul of me, avoid falling into sudden
spasmodic passions with him. For it was exceeding difficult to bear in mind all
the time those strange peculiarities, privileges, and unheard of exemptions,
forming the tacit stipulations on Bartleby's part under which he remained in my
office. Now and then, in the eagerness of dispatching pressing business, I
would inadvertently summon Bartleby, in a short, rapid tone, to put his finger,
say, on the incipient tie of a bit of red tape with which I was about
compressing some papers. Of course, from behind the screen the usual answer,
"I prefer not to," was sure to come; and then, how could a human
creature with the common infirmities of our nature, refrain from bitterly
exclaiming upon such perverseness—such unreasonableness. However, every added
repulse of this sort which I received only tended to lessen the probability of
my repeating the inadvertence.
Here it must be said, that according to
the custom of most legal gentlemen occupying chambers in densely-populated law
buildings, there were several keys to my door. One was kept by a woman residing
in the attic, which person weekly scrubbed and daily swept and dusted my
apartments. Another was kept by Turkey for convenience sake. The third I
sometimes carried in my own pocket. The fourth I knew not who had.
Now, one Sunday morning I happened to
go to Trinity Church, to hear a celebrated preacher, and finding myself rather
early on the ground, I thought I would walk around to my chambers for a while.
Luckily I had my key with me; but upon applying it to the lock, I found it
resisted by something inserted from the inside. Quite surprised, I called out;
when to my consternation a key was turned from within; and thrusting his lean
visage at me, and holding the door ajar, the apparition of Bartleby appeared,
in his shirt sleeves, and otherwise in a strangely tattered dishabille, saying
quietly that he was sorry, but he was deeply engaged just then, and—preferred
not admitting me at present. In a brief word or two, he moreover added, that
perhaps I had better walk round the block two or three times, and by that time
he would probably have concluded his affairs.
Now, the utterly unsurmised appearance
of Bartleby, tenanting my law-chambers of a Sunday morning, with his
cadaverously gentlemanly nonchalance, yet withal firm and
self-possessed, had such a strange effect upon me, that incontinently I slunk
away from my own door, and did as desired. But not without sundry twinges of
impotent rebellion against the mild effrontery of this unaccountable scrivener.
Indeed, it was his wonderful mildness chiefly, which not only disarmed me, but
unmanned me, as it were. For I consider that one, for the time, is a sort of
unmanned when he tranquilly permits his hired clerk to dictate to him, and
order him away from his own premises. Furthermore, I was full of uneasiness as
to what Bartleby could possibly be doing in my office in his shirt sleeves, and
in an otherwise dismantled condition of a Sunday morning. Was any thing amiss
going on? Nay, that was out of the question. It was not to be thought of for a
moment that Bartleby was an immoral person. But what could he be doing
there?—copying? Nay again, whatever might be his eccentricities, Bartleby was
an eminently decorous person. He would be the last man to sit down to his desk
in any state approaching to nudity. Besides, it was Sunday; and there was
something about Bartleby that forbade the supposition that he would by any
secular occupation violate the proprieties of the day.
Nevertheless, my mind was not pacified;
and full of a restless curiosity, at last I returned to the door. Without
hindrance I inserted my key, opened it, and entered. Bartleby was not to be seen.
I looked round anxiously, peeped behind his screen; but it was very plain that
he was gone. Upon more closely examining the place, I surmised that for an
indefinite period Bartleby must have ate, dressed, and slept in my office, and
that too without plate, mirror, or bed. The cushioned seat of a rickety old
sofa in one corner bore the faint impress of a lean, reclining form. Rolled
away under his desk, I found a blanket; under the empty grate, a blacking box
and brush; on a chair, a tin basin, with soap and a ragged towel; in a
newspaper a few crumbs of ginger-nuts and a morsel of cheese. Yes, thought I,
it is evident enough that Bartleby has been making his home here, keeping
bachelor's hall all by himself. Immediately then the thought came sweeping across
me, What miserable friendlessness and loneliness are here revealed! His poverty
is great; but his solitude, how horrible! Think of it. Of a Sunday, Wall-street
is deserted as Petra; and every night of every day it is an emptiness. This
building too, which of week-days hums with industry and life, at nightfall
echoes with sheer vacancy, and all through Sunday is forlorn. And here Bartleby
makes his home; sole spectator of a solitude which he has seen all populous—a
sort of innocent and transformed Marius brooding among the ruins of Carthage!
For the first time in my life a feeling
of overpowering stinging melancholy seized me. Before, I had never experienced
aught but a not-unpleasing sadness. The bond of a common humanity now drew me
irresistibly to gloom. A fraternal melancholy! For both I and Bartleby were
sons of Adam. I remembered the bright silks and sparkling faces I had seen that
day, in gala trim, swan-like sailing down the Mississippi of Broadway; and I
contrasted them with the pallid copyist, and thought to myself, Ah, happiness
courts the light, so we deem the world is gay; but misery hides aloof, so we
deem that misery there is none. These sad fancyings—chimeras, doubtless, of a
sick and silly brain—led on to other and more special thoughts, concerning the
eccentricities of Bartleby. Presentiments of strange discoveries hovered round
me. The scrivener's pale form appeared to me laid out, among uncaring
strangers, in its shivering winding sheet.
Suddenly I was attracted by Bartleby's
closed desk, the key in open sight left in the lock.
I mean no mischief, seek the
gratification of no heartless curiosity, thought I; besides, the desk is mine,
and its contents too, so I will make bold to look within. Every thing was
methodically arranged, the papers smoothly placed. The pigeon holes were deep,
and removing the files of documents, I groped into their recesses. Presently I
felt something there, and dragged it out. It was an old bandanna handkerchief,
heavy and knotted. I opened it, and saw it was a savings' bank.
I now recalled all the quiet mysteries
which I had noted in the man. I remembered that he never spoke but to answer;
that though at intervals he had considerable time to himself, yet I had never
seen him reading—no, not even a newspaper; that for long periods he would stand
looking out, at his pale window behind the screen, upon the dead brick wall; I
was quite sure he never visited any refectory or eating house; while his pale
face clearly indicated that he never drank beer like Turkey, or tea and coffee
even, like other men; that he never went any where in particular that I could
learn; never went out for a walk, unless indeed that was the case at present;
that he had declined telling who he was, or whence he came, or whether he had
any relatives in the world; that though so thin and pale, he never complained
of ill health. And more than all, I remembered a certain unconscious air of
pallid—how shall I call it?—of pallid haughtiness, say, or rather an austere
reserve about him, which had positively awed me into my tame compliance with
his eccentricities, when I had feared to ask him to do the slightest incidental
thing for me, even though I might know, from his long-continued motionlessness,
that behind his screen he must be standing in one of those dead-wall reveries
of his.
Revolving all these things, and
coupling them with the recently discovered fact that he made my office his
constant abiding place and home, and not forgetful of his morbid moodiness;
revolving all these things, a prudential feeling began to steal over me. My
first emotions had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just
in proportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew to my imagination,
did that same melancholy merge into fear, that pity into repulsion. So true it
is, and so terrible too, that up to a certain point the thought or sight of
misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond that
point it does not. They err who would assert that invariably this is owing to
the inherent selfishness of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain
hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity
is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead
to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul rid of it. What I saw that
morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim of innate and incurable
disorder. I might give alms to his body; but his body did not pain him; it was
his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach.
I did not accomplish the purpose of
going to Trinity Church that morning. Somehow, the things I had seen
disqualified me for the time from church-going. I walked homeward, thinking
what I would do with Bartleby. Finally, I resolved upon this;—I would put
certain calm questions to him the next morning, touching his history, etc., and
if he declined to answer them openly and unreservedly (and I supposed he would
prefer not), then to give him a twenty dollar bill over and above whatever I
might owe him, and tell him his services were no longer required; but that if
in any other way I could assist him, I would be happy to do so, especially if
he desired to return to his native place, wherever that might be, I would
willingly help to defray the expenses. Moreover, if, after reaching home, he
found himself at any time in want of aid, a letter from him would be sure of a
reply.
The next morning came.
"Bartleby," said I, gently
calling to him behind his screen.
No reply.
"Bartleby," said I, in a
still gentler tone, "come here; I am not going to ask you to do any thing
you would prefer not to do—I simply wish to speak to you."
Upon this he noiselessly slid into
view.
"Will you tell me, Bartleby, where
you were born?"
"I would prefer not to."
"Will you tell me any thing
about yourself?"
"I would prefer not to."
"But what reasonable objection can
you have to speak to me? I feel friendly towards you."
He did not look at me while I spoke,
but kept his glance fixed upon my bust of Cicero, which as I then sat, was directly
behind me, some six inches above my head.
"What is your answer,
Bartleby?" said I, after waiting a considerable time for a reply, during
which his countenance remained immovable, only there was the faintest
conceivable tremor of the white attenuated mouth.
"At present I prefer to give no
answer," he said, and retired into his hermitage.
It was rather weak in me I confess, but
his manner on this occasion nettled me. Not only did there seem to lurk in it a
certain calm disdain, but his perverseness seemed ungrateful, considering the
undeniable good usage and indulgence he had received from me.
Again I sat ruminating what I should
do. Mortified as I was at his behavior, and resolved as I had been to dismiss
him when I entered my offices, nevertheless I strangely felt something
superstitious knocking at my heart, and forbidding me to carry out my purpose,
and denouncing me for a villain if I dared to breathe one bitter word against
this forlornest of mankind. At last, familiarly drawing my chair behind his
screen, I sat down and said: "Bartleby, never mind then about revealing
your history; but let me entreat you, as a friend, to comply as far as may be
with the usages of this office. Say now you will help to examine papers
to-morrow or next day: in short, say now that in a day or two you will begin to
be a little reasonable:—say so, Bartleby."
"At present I would prefer not to
be a little reasonable," was his mildly cadaverous reply.
Just then the folding-doors opened, and
Nippers approached. He seemed suffering from an unusually bad night's rest,
induced by severer indigestion than common. He overheard those final words of
Bartleby.
"Prefer not, eh?"
gritted Nippers—"I'd prefer him, if I were you, sir,"
addressing me—"I'd prefer him; I'd give him preferences, the
stubborn mule! What is it, sir, pray, that he prefers not to do
now?"
Bartleby moved not a limb.
"Mr. Nippers," said I,
"I'd prefer that you would withdraw for the present."
Somehow, of late I had got into the way
of involuntarily using this word "prefer" upon all sorts of not
exactly suitable occasions. And I trembled to think that my contact with the
scrivener had already and seriously affected me in a mental way. And what
further and deeper aberration might it not yet produce? This apprehension had
not been without efficacy in determining me to summary means.
As Nippers, looking very sour and
sulky, was departing, Turkey blandly and deferentially approached.
"With submission, sir," said
he, "yesterday I was thinking about Bartleby here, and I think that if he
would but prefer to take a quart of good ale every day, it would do much
towards mending him, and enabling him to assist in examining his papers."
"So you have got the word
too," said I, slightly excited.
"With submission, what word,
sir," asked Turkey, respectfully crowding himself into the contracted
space behind the screen, and by so doing, making me jostle the scrivener.
"What word, sir?"
"I would prefer to be left alone
here," said Bartleby, as if offended at being mobbed in his privacy.
"That's the word,
Turkey," said I—"that's it."
"Oh, prefer? oh yes—queer
word. I never use it myself. But, sir, as
I was saying, if he would but prefer—"
I was saying, if he would but prefer—"
"Turkey," interrupted I,
"you will please withdraw."
"Oh certainly, sir, if you prefer
that I should."
As he opened the folding-door to
retire, Nippers at his desk caught a glimpse of me, and asked whether I would
prefer to have a certain paper copied on blue paper or white. He did not in the
least roguishly accent the word prefer. It was plain that it involuntarily
rolled from his tongue. I thought to myself, surely I must get rid of a
demented man, who already has in some degree turned the tongues, if not the
heads of myself and clerks. But I thought it prudent not to break the
dismission at once.
The next day I noticed that Bartleby
did nothing but stand at his window in his dead-wall revery. Upon asking him
why he did not write, he said that he had decided upon doing no more writing.
"Why, how now? what next?"
exclaimed I, "do no more writing?"
"No more."
"And what is the reason?"
"Do you not see the reason for
yourself," he indifferently replied.
I looked steadfastly at him, and
perceived that his eyes looked dull and glazed. Instantly it occurred to me,
that his unexampled diligence in copying by his dim window for the first few
weeks of his stay with me might have temporarily impaired his vision.
I was touched. I said something in
condolence with him. I hinted that of course he did wisely in abstaining from
writing for a while; and urged him to embrace that opportunity of taking
wholesome exercise in the open air. This, however, he did not do. A few days
after this, my other clerks being absent, and being in a great hurry to
dispatch certain letters by the mail, I thought that, having nothing else earthly
to do, Bartleby would surely be less inflexible than usual, and carry these
letters to the post-office. But he blankly declined. So, much to my
inconvenience, I went myself.
Still added days went by. Whether
Bartleby's eyes improved or not, I could not say. To all appearance, I thought
they did. But when I asked him if they did, he vouchsafed no answer. At all
events, he would do no copying. At last, in reply to my urgings, he informed me
that he had permanently given up copying.
"What!" exclaimed I;
"suppose your eyes should get entirely well—better than ever before—would
you not copy then?"
"I have given up copying," he
answered, and slid aside.
He remained as ever, a fixture in my
chamber. Nay—if that were possible—he became still more of a fixture than
before. What was to be done? He would do nothing in the office: why should he
stay there? In plain fact, he had now become a millstone to me, not only
useless as a necklace, but afflictive to bear. Yet I was sorry for him. I speak
less than truth when I say that, on his own account, he occasioned me
uneasiness. If he would but have named a single relative or friend, I would
instantly have written, and urged their taking the poor fellow away to some
convenient retreat. But he seemed alone, absolutely alone in the universe. A
bit of wreck in the mid Atlantic. At length, necessities connected with my
business tyrannized over all other considerations. Decently as I could, I told
Bartleby that in six days' time he must unconditionally leave the office. I
warned him to take measures, in the interval, for procuring some other abode. I
offered to assist him in this endeavor, if he himself would but take the first
step towards a removal. "And when you finally quit me, Bartleby,"
added I, "I shall see that you go not away entirely unprovided. Six days
from this hour, remember."
At the expiration of that period, I
peeped behind the screen, and lo!
Bartleby was there.
Bartleby was there.
I buttoned up my coat, balanced myself;
advanced slowly towards him, touched his shoulder, and said, "The time has
come; you must quit this place; I am sorry for you; here is money; but you must
go."
"I would prefer not," he
replied, with his back still towards me.
"You must."
He remained silent.
Now I had an unbounded confidence in
this man's common honesty. He had frequently restored to me sixpences and
shillings carelessly dropped upon the floor, for I am apt to be very reckless
in such shirt-button affairs. The proceeding then which followed will not be
deemed extraordinary.
"Bartleby," said I, "I
owe you twelve dollars on account; here are thirty-two; the odd twenty are
yours.—Will you take it?" and I handed the bills towards him.
But he made no motion.
"I will leave them here
then," putting them under a weight on the table. Then taking my hat and
cane and going to the door I tranquilly turned and added—"After you have
removed your things from these offices, Bartleby, you will of course lock the
door—since every one is now gone for the day but you—and if you please, slip
your key underneath the mat, so that I may have it in the morning. I shall not
see you again; so good-bye to you. If hereafter in your new place of abode I
can be of any service to you, do not fail to advise me by letter. Good-bye,
Bartleby, and fare you well."
But he answered not a word; like the
last column of some ruined temple, he remained standing mute and solitary in
the middle of the otherwise deserted room.
As I walked home in a pensive mood, my
vanity got the better of my pity. I could not but highly plume myself on my
masterly management in getting rid of Bartleby. Masterly I call it, and such it
must appear to any dispassionate thinker. The beauty of my procedure seemed to
consist in its perfect quietness. There was no vulgar bullying, no bravado of
any sort, no choleric hectoring, and striding to and fro across the apartment,
jerking out vehement commands for Bartleby to bundle himself off with his
beggarly traps. Nothing of the kind. Without loudly bidding Bartleby depart—as
an inferior genius might have done—I assumed the ground that depart he
must; and upon that assumption built all I had to say. The more I thought over
my procedure, the more I was charmed with it. Nevertheless, next morning, upon
awakening, I had my doubts,—I had somehow slept off the fumes of vanity. One of
the coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning.
My procedure seemed as sagacious as ever.—but only in theory. How it would
prove in practice—there was the rub. It was truly a beautiful thought to have
assumed Bartleby's departure; but, after all, that assumption was simply my
own, and none of Bartleby's. The great point was, not whether I had assumed
that he would quit me, but whether he would prefer so to do. He was more a man
of preferences than assumptions.
After breakfast, I walked down town,
arguing the probabilities pro and con. One moment I thought it
would prove a miserable failure, and Bartleby would be found all alive at my
office as usual; the next moment it seemed certain that I should see his chair
empty. And so I kept veering about. At the corner of Broadway and Canal-street,
I saw quite an excited group of people standing in earnest conversation.
"I'll take odds he doesn't,"
said a voice as I passed.
"Doesn't go?—done!" said I,
"put up your money."
I was instinctively putting my hand in
my pocket to produce my own, when I remembered that this was an election day.
The words I had overheard bore no reference to Bartleby, but to the success or
non-success of some candidate for the mayoralty. In my intent frame of mind, I
had, as it were, imagined that all Broadway shared in my excitement, and were
debating the same question with me. I passed on, very thankful that the uproar
of the street screened my momentary absent-mindedness.
As I had intended, I was earlier than
usual at my office door. I stood listening for a moment. All was still. He must
be gone. I tried the knob. The door was locked. Yes, my procedure had worked to
a charm; he indeed must be vanished. Yet a certain melancholy mixed with this:
I was almost sorry for my brilliant success. I was fumbling under the door mat
for the key, which Bartleby was to have left there for me, when accidentally my
knee knocked against a panel, producing a summoning sound, and in response a
voice came to me from within—"Not yet; I am occupied."
It was Bartleby.
I was thunderstruck. For an instant I
stood like the man who, pipe in mouth, was killed one cloudless afternoon long
ago in Virginia, by a summer lightning; at his own warm open window he was
killed, and remained leaning out there upon the dreamy afternoon, till some one
touched him, when he fell.
"Not gone!" I murmured at
last. But again obeying that wondrous ascendancy which the inscrutable
scrivener had over me, and from which ascendancy, for all my chafing, I could
not completely escape, I slowly went down stairs and out into the street, and
while walking round the block, considered what I should next do in this
unheard-of perplexity. Turn the man out by an actual thrusting I could not; to
drive him away by calling him hard names would not do; calling in the police
was an unpleasant idea; and yet, permit him to enjoy his cadaverous triumph
over me,—this too I could not think of. What was to be done? or, if nothing
could be done, was there any thing further that I could assume in the
matter? Yes, as before I had prospectively assumed that Bartleby would depart,
so now I might retrospectively assume that departed he was. In the legitimate
carrying out of this assumption, I might enter my office in a great hurry, and
pretending not to see Bartleby at all, walk straight against him as if he were
air. Such a proceeding would in a singular degree have the appearance of a
home-thrust. It was hardly possible that Bartleby could withstand such an
application of the doctrine of assumptions. But upon second thoughts the
success of the plan seemed rather dubious. I resolved to argue the matter over
with him again.
"Bartleby," said I, entering
the office, with a quietly severe expression, "I am seriously displeased.
I am pained, Bartleby. I had thought better of you. I had imagined you of such
a gentlemanly organization, that in any delicate dilemma a slight hint would
have suffice—in short, an assumption. But it appears I am deceived. Why,"
I added, unaffectedly starting, "you have not even touched that money
yet," pointing to it, just where I had left it the evening previous.
He answered nothing.
"Will you, or will you not, quit
me?" I now demanded in a sudden passion, advancing close to him.
"I would prefer not to quit
you," he replied, gently emphasizing the not.
"What earthly right have you to
stay here? Do you pay any rent? Do you pay my taxes? Or is this property
yours?"
He answered nothing.
"Are you ready to go on and write
now? Are your eyes recovered? Could you copy a small paper for me this morning?
or help examine a few lines? or step round to the post-office? In a word, will
you do any thing at all, to give a coloring to your refusal to depart the
premises?"
He silently retired into his hermitage.
I was now in such a state of nervous
resentment that I thought it but prudent to check myself at present from
further demonstrations. Bartleby and I were alone. I remembered the tragedy of
the unfortunate Adams and the still more unfortunate Colt in the solitary
office of the latter; and how poor Colt, being dreadfully incensed by Adams,
and imprudently permitting himself to get wildly excited, was at unawares
hurried into his fatal act—an act which certainly no man could possibly deplore
more than the actor himself. Often it had occurred to me in my ponderings upon
the subject, that had that altercation taken place in the public street, or at
a private residence, it would not have terminated as it did. It was the
circumstance of being alone in a solitary office, up stairs, of a building
entirely unhallowed by humanizing domestic associations—an uncarpeted office,
doubtless, of a dusty, haggard sort of appearance;—this it must have been,
which greatly helped to enhance the irritable desperation of the hapless Colt.
But when this old Adam of resentment
rose in me and tempted me concerning Bartleby, I grappled him and threw him.
How? Why, simply by recalling the divine injunction: "A new commandment give
I unto you, that ye love one another." Yes, this it was that saved me.
Aside from higher considerations, charity often operates as a vastly wise and
prudent principle—a great safeguard to its possessor. Men have committed murder
for jealousy's sake, and anger's sake, and hatred's sake, and selfishness'
sake, and spiritual pride's sake; but no man that ever I heard of, ever
committed a diabolical murder for sweet charity's sake. Mere self-interest,
then, if no better motive can be enlisted, should, especially with
high-tempered men, prompt all beings to charity and philanthropy. At any rate,
upon the occasion in question, I strove to drown my exasperated feelings
towards the scrivener by benevolently construing his conduct. Poor fellow, poor
fellow! thought I, he don't mean any thing; and besides, he has seen hard
times, and ought to be indulged.
I endeavored also immediately to occupy
myself, and at the same time to comfort my despondency. I tried to fancy that
in the course of the morning, at such time as might prove agreeable to him,
Bartleby, of his own free accord, would emerge from his hermitage, and take up
some decided line of march in the direction of the door. But no. Half-past
twelve o'clock came; Turkey began to glow in the face, overturn his inkstand,
and become generally obstreperous; Nippers abated down into quietude and
courtesy; Ginger Nut munched his noon apple; and Bartleby remained standing at
his window in one of his profoundest dead-wall reveries. Will it be credited?
Ought I to acknowledge it? That afternoon I left the office without saying one
further word to him.
Some days now passed, during which, at
leisure intervals I looked a little into "Edwards on the Will," and
"Priestly on Necessity." Under the circumstances, those books induced
a salutary feeling. Gradually I slid into the persuasion that these troubles of
mine touching the scrivener, had been all predestinated from eternity, and
Bartleby was billeted upon me for some mysterious purpose of an all-wise
Providence, which it was not for a mere mortal like me to fathom. Yes,
Bartleby, stay there behind your screen, thought I; I shall persecute you no
more; you are harmless and noiseless as any of these old chairs; in short, I
never feel so private as when I know you are here. At last I see it, I feel it;
I penetrate to the predestinated purpose of my life. I am content. Others may
have loftier parts to enact; but my mission in this world, Bartleby, is to
furnish you with office-room for such period as you may see fit to remain.
I believe that this wise and blessed
frame of mind would have continued with me, had it not been for the unsolicited
and uncharitable remarks obtruded upon me by my professional friends who
visited the rooms. But thus it often is, that the constant friction of
illiberal minds wears out at last the best resolves of the more generous.
Though to be sure, when I reflected upon it, it was not strange that people
entering my office should be struck by the peculiar aspect of the unaccountable
Bartleby, and so be tempted to throw out some sinister observations concerning
him. Sometimes an attorney having business with me, and calling at my office
and finding no one but the scrivener there, would undertake to obtain some sort
of precise information from him touching my whereabouts; but without heeding
his idle talk, Bartleby would remain standing immovable in the middle of the
room. So after contemplating him in that position for a time, the attorney
would depart, no wiser than he came.
Also, when a Reference was going on,
and the room full of lawyers and witnesses and business was driving fast; some
deeply occupied legal gentleman present, seeing Bartleby wholly unemployed,
would request him to run round to his (the legal gentleman's) office and fetch
some papers for him. Thereupon, Bartleby would tranquilly decline, and yet
remain idle as before. Then the lawyer would give a great stare, and turn to
me. And what could I say? At last I was made aware that all through the circle
of my professional acquaintance, a whisper of wonder was running round, having
reference to the strange creature I kept at my office. This worried me very
much. And as the idea came upon me of his possibly turning out a long-lived
man, and keep occupying my chambers, and denying my authority; and perplexing
my visitors; and scandalizing my professional reputation; and casting a general
gloom over the premises; keeping soul and body together to the last upon his
savings (for doubtless he spent but half a dime a day), and in the end perhaps
outlive me, and claim possession of my office by right of his perpetual
occupancy: as all these dark anticipations crowded upon me more and more, and
my friends continually intruded their relentless remarks upon the apparition in
my room; a great change was wrought in me. I resolved to gather all my
faculties together, and for ever rid me of this intolerable incubus.
Ere revolving any complicated project,
however, adapted to this end, I first simply suggested to Bartleby the
propriety of his permanent departure. In a calm and serious tone, I commended
the idea to his careful and mature consideration. But having taken three days
to meditate upon it, he apprised me that his original determination remained
the same; in short, that he still preferred to abide with me.
What shall I do? I now said to myself,
buttoning up my coat to the last button. What shall I do? what ought I to do?
what does conscience say I should do with this man, or rather ghost. Rid
myself of him, I must; go, he shall. But how? You will not thrust him, the
poor, pale, passive mortal,—you will not thrust such a helpless creature out of
your door? you will not dishonor yourself by such cruelty? No, I will not, I
cannot do that. Rather would I let him live and die here, and then mason up his
remains in the wall. What then will you do? For all your coaxing, he will not
budge. Bribes he leaves under your own paperweight on your table; in short, it
is quite plain that he prefers to cling to you.
Then something severe, something
unusual must be done. What! surely you will not have him collared by a
constable, and commit his innocent pallor to the common jail? And upon what
ground could you procure such a thing to be done?—a vagrant, is he? What! he a
vagrant, a wanderer, who refuses to budge? It is because he will not be
a vagrant, then, that you seek to count him as a vagrant. That is too
absurd. No visible means of support: there I have him. Wrong again: for
indubitably he does support himself, and that is the only unanswerable
proof that any man can show of his possessing the means so to do. No more then.
Since he will not quit me, I must quit him. I will change my offices; I will
move elsewhere; and give him fair notice, that if I find him on my new premises
I will then proceed against him as a common trespasser.
Acting accordingly, next day I thus
addressed him: "I find these chambers too far from the City Hall; the air
is unwholesome. In a word, I propose to remove my offices next week, and shall
no longer require your services. I tell you this now, in order that you may
seek another place."
He made no reply, and nothing more was
said.
On the appointed day I engaged carts
and men, proceeded to my chambers, and having but little furniture, every thing
was removed in a few hours. Throughout, the scrivener remained standing behind
the screen, which I directed to be removed the last thing. It was withdrawn;
and being folded up like a huge folio, left him the motionless occupant of a
naked room. I stood in the entry watching him a moment, while something from
within me upbraided me.
I re-entered, with my hand in my
pocket—and—and my heart in my mouth.
"Good-bye, Bartleby; I am
going—good-bye, and God some way bless you; and take that," slipping
something in his hand. But it dropped upon the floor, and then,—strange to
say—I tore myself from him whom I had so longed to be rid of.
Established in my new quarters, for a
day or two I kept the door locked, and started at every footfall in the
passages. When I returned to my rooms after any little absence, I would pause
at the threshold for an instant, and attentively listen, ere applying my key.
But these fears were needless. Bartleby never came nigh me.
I thought all was going well, when a
perturbed looking stranger visited me, inquiring whether I was the person who
had recently occupied rooms at No.—Wall-street.
Full of forebodings, I replied that I
was.
"Then sir," said the
stranger, who proved a lawyer, "you are responsible for the man you left
there. He refuses to do any copying; he refuses to do any thing; he says he prefers
not to; and he refuses to quit the premises."
"I am very sorry, sir," said
I, with assumed tranquility, but an inward tremor, "but, really, the man
you allude to is nothing to me—he is no relation or apprentice of mine, that
you should hold me responsible for him."
"In mercy's name, who is he?"
"I certainly cannot inform you. I
know nothing about him. Formerly I employed him as a copyist; but he has done
nothing for me now for some time past."
"I shall settle him then,—good
morning, sir."
Several days passed, and I heard
nothing more; and though I often felt a charitable prompting to call at the
place and see poor Bartleby, yet a certain squeamishness of I know not what
withheld me.
All is over with him, by this time,
thought I at last, when through another week no further intelligence reached
me. But coming to my room the day after, I found several persons waiting at my
door in a high state of nervous excitement.
"That's the man—here he
comes," cried the foremost one, whom I recognized as the lawyer who had
previously called upon me alone.
"You must take him away, sir, at
once," cried a portly person among them, advancing upon me, and whom I
knew to be the landlord of No.—Wall-street. "These gentlemen, my tenants,
cannot stand it any longer; Mr. B—" pointing to the lawyer, "has
turned him out of his room, and he now persists in haunting the building
generally, sitting upon the banisters of the stairs by day, and sleeping in the
entry by night. Every body is concerned; clients are leaving the offices; some
fears are entertained of a mob; something you must do, and that without
delay."
Aghast at this torrent, I fell back
before it, and would fain have locked myself in my new quarters. In vain I
persisted that Bartleby was nothing to me—no more than to any one else. In
vain:—I was the last person known to have any thing to do with him, and they
held me to the terrible account. Fearful then of being exposed in the papers
(as one person present obscurely threatened) I considered the matter, and at
length said, that if the lawyer would give me a confidential interview with the
scrivener, in his (the lawyer's) own room, I would that afternoon strive my
best to rid them of the nuisance they complained of.
Going up stairs to my old haunt, there
was Bartleby silently sitting upon the banister at the landing.
"What are you doing here,
Bartleby?" said I.
"Sitting upon the banister,"
he mildly replied.
I motioned him into the lawyer's room,
who then left us.
"Bartleby," said I, "are
you aware that you are the cause of great tribulation to me, by persisting in
occupying the entry after being dismissed from the office?"
No answer.
"Now one of two things must take
place. Either you must do something, or something must be done to you. Now what
sort of business would you like to engage in? Would you like to re-engage in
copying for some one?"
"No; I would prefer not to make
any change."
"Would you like a clerkship in a
dry-goods store?"
"There is too much confinement
about that. No, I would not like a clerkship; but I am not particular."
"Too much confinement," I
cried, "why you keep yourself confined all the time!"
"I would prefer not to take a
clerkship," he rejoined, as if to settle that little item at once.
"How would a bar-tender's business
suit you? There is no trying of the eyesight in that."
"I would not like it at all;
though, as I said before, I am not particular."
His unwonted wordiness inspirited me. I
returned to the charge.
"Well then, would you like to
travel through the country collecting bills for the merchants? That would
improve your health."
"No, I would prefer to be doing
something else."
"How then would going as a
companion to Europe, to entertain some young gentleman with your
conversation,—how would that suit you?"
"Not at all. It does not strike me
that there is any thing definite about that. I like to be stationary. But I am
not particular."
"Stationary you shall be
then," I cried, now losing all patience, and for the first time in all my
exasperating connection with him fairly flying into a passion. "If you do
not go away from these premises before night, I shall feel bound—indeed I am
bound—to—to—to quit the premises myself!" I rather absurdly concluded,
knowing not with what possible threat to try to frighten his immobility into
compliance. Despairing of all further efforts, I was precipitately leaving him,
when a final thought occurred to me—one which had not been wholly unindulged
before.
"Bartleby," said I, in the
kindest tone I could assume under such exciting circumstances, "will you
go home with me now—not to my office, but my dwelling—and remain there till we
can conclude upon some convenient arrangement for you at our leisure? Come, let
us start now, right away."
"No: at present I would prefer not
to make any change at all."
I answered nothing; but effectually
dodging every one by the suddenness and rapidity of my flight, rushed from the
building, ran up Wall-street towards Broadway, and jumping into the first
omnibus was soon removed from pursuit. As soon as tranquility returned I
distinctly perceived that I had now done all that I possibly could, both in
respect to the demands of the landlord and his tenants, and with regard to my
own desire and sense of duty, to benefit Bartleby, and shield him from rude
persecution. I now strove to be entirely care-free and quiescent; and my
conscience justified me in the attempt; though indeed it was not so successful
as I could have wished. So fearful was I of being again hunted out by the
incensed landlord and his exasperated tenants, that, surrendering my business
to Nippers, for a few days I drove about the upper part of the town and through
the suburbs, in my rockaway; crossed over to Jersey City and Hoboken, and paid
fugitive visits to Manhattanville and Astoria. In fact I almost lived in my
rockaway for the time.
When again I entered my office, lo, a
note from the landlord lay upon the desk. I opened it with trembling hands. It
informed me that the writer had sent to the police, and had Bartleby removed to
the Tombs as a vagrant. Moreover, since I knew more about him than any one
else, he wished me to appear at that place, and make a suitable statement of
the facts. These tidings had a conflicting effect upon me. At first I was
indignant; but at last almost approved. The landlord's energetic, summary
disposition had led him to adopt a procedure which I do not think I would have
decided upon myself; and yet as a last resort, under such peculiar
circumstances, it seemed the only plan.
As I afterwards learned, the poor
scrivener, when told that he must be conducted to the Tombs, offered not the
slightest obstacle, but in his pale unmoving way, silently acquiesced.
Some of the compassionate and curious
bystanders joined the party; and headed by one of the constables arm in arm
with Bartleby, the silent procession filed its way through all the noise, and
heat, and joy of the roaring thoroughfares at noon.
The same day I received the note I went
to the Tombs, or to speak more properly, the Halls of Justice. Seeking the
right officer, I stated the purpose of my call, and was informed that the
individual I described was indeed within. I then assured the functionary that
Bartleby was a perfectly honest man, and greatly to be compassionated, however
unaccountably eccentric. I narrated all I knew, and closed by suggesting the
idea of letting him remain in as indulgent confinement as possible till
something less harsh might be done—though indeed I hardly knew what. At all
events, if nothing else could be decided upon, the alms-house must receive him.
I then begged to have an interview.
Being under no disgraceful charge, and
quite serene and harmless in all his ways, they had permitted him freely to
wander about the prison, and especially in the inclosed grass-platted yard
thereof. And so I found him there, standing all alone in the quietest of the
yards, his face towards a high wall, while all around, from the narrow slits of
the jail windows, I thought I saw peering out upon him the eyes of murderers
and thieves.
"Bartleby!"
"I know you," he said,
without looking round,—"and I want nothing to say to you."
"It was not I that brought you
here, Bartleby," said I, keenly pained at his implied suspicion. "And
to you, this should not be so vile a place. Nothing reproachful attaches to you
by being here. And see, it is not so sad a place as one might think. Look,
there is the sky, and here is the grass."
"I know where I am," he
replied, but would say nothing more, and so I left him.
As I entered the corridor again, a
broad meat-like man, in an apron, accosted me, and jerking his thumb over his
shoulder said—"Is that your friend?"
"Yes."
"Does he want to starve? If he
does, let him live on the prison fare, that's all."
"Who are you?" asked I, not
knowing what to make of such an unofficially speaking person in such a place.
"I am the grub-man. Such gentlemen
as have friends here, hire me to provide them with something good to eat."
"Is this so?" said I, turning
to the turnkey.
He said it was.
"Well then," said I, slipping
some silver into the grub-man's hands (for so they called him). "I want
you to give particular attention to my friend there; let him have the best
dinner you can get. And you must be as polite to him as possible."
"Introduce me, will you?"
said the grub-man, looking at me with an expression which seem to say he was
all impatience for an opportunity to give a specimen of his breeding.
Thinking it would prove of benefit to
the scrivener, I acquiesced; and asking the grub-man his name, went up with him
to Bartleby.
"Bartleby, this is Mr. Cutlets;
you will find him very useful to you."
"Your sarvant, sir, your
sarvant," said the grub-man, making a low salutation behind his apron.
"Hope you find it pleasant here, sir;—spacious grounds—cool apartments,
sir—hope you'll stay with us some time—try to make it agreeable. May Mrs.
Cutlets and I have the pleasure of your company to dinner, sir, in Mrs.
Cutlets' private room?"
"I prefer not to dine
to-day," said Bartleby, turning away. "It would disagree with me; I
am unused to dinners." So saying he slowly moved to the other side of the
inclosure, and took up a position fronting the dead-wall.
"How's this?" said the
grub-man, addressing me with a stare of astonishment. "He's odd, aint
he?"
"I think he is a little
deranged," said I, sadly.
"Deranged? deranged is it? Well
now, upon my word, I thought that friend of yourn was a gentleman forger; they
are always pale and genteel-like, them forgers. I can't pity'em—can't help it,
sir. Did you know Monroe Edwards?" he added touchingly, and paused. Then,
laying his hand pityingly on my shoulder, sighed, "he died of consumption
at Sing-Sing. So you weren't acquainted with Monroe?"
"No, I was never socially
acquainted with any forgers. But I cannot stop longer. Look to my friend
yonder. You will not lose by it. I will see you again."
Some few days after this, I again
obtained admission to the Tombs, and went through the corridors in quest of
Bartleby; but without finding him.
"I saw him coming from his cell
not long ago," said a turnkey, "may be he's gone to loiter in the
yards."
So I went in that direction.
"Are you looking for the silent
man?" said another turnkey passing me. "Yonder he lies—sleeping in
the yard there. 'Tis not twenty minutes since I saw him lie down."
The yard was entirely quiet. It was not
accessible to the common prisoners. The surrounding walls, of amazing
thickness, kept off all sounds behind them. The Egyptian character of the
masonry weighed upon me with its gloom. But a soft imprisoned turf grew under
foot. The heart of the eternal pyramids, it seemed, wherein, by some strange
magic, through the clefts, grass-seed, dropped by birds, had sprung.
Strangely huddled at the base of the
wall, his knees drawn up, and lying on his side, his head touching the cold
stones, I saw the wasted Bartleby. But nothing stirred. I paused; then went
close up to him; stooped over, and saw that his dim eyes were open; otherwise
he seemed profoundly sleeping. Something prompted me to touch him. I felt his
hand, when a tingling shiver ran up my arm and down my spine to my feet.
The round face of the grub-man peered
upon me now. "His dinner is ready. Won't he dine to-day, either? Or does
he live without dining?"
"Lives without dining," said
I, and closed his eyes.
"Eh!—He's asleep, aint he?"
"With kings and counselors,"
murmured I.
* * * * * * * *
There would seem little need for
proceeding further in this history. Imagination will readily supply the meager
recital of poor Bartleby's interment. But ere parting with the reader, let me
say, that if this little narrative has sufficiently interested him, to awaken
curiosity as to who Bartleby was, and what manner of life he led prior to the
present narrator's making his acquaintance, I can only reply, that in such
curiosity I fully share, but am wholly unable to gratify it. Yet here I hardly
know whether I should divulge one little item of rumor, which came to my ear a
few months after the scrivener's decease. Upon what basis it rested, I could
never ascertain; and hence, how true it is I cannot now tell. But inasmuch as
this vague report has not been without certain strange suggestive interest to
me, however sad, it may prove the same with some others; and so I will briefly
mention it. The report was this: that Bartleby had been a subordinate clerk in
the Dead Letter Office at Washington, from which he had been suddenly removed
by a change in the administration. When I think over this rumor, I cannot
adequately express the emotions which seize me. Dead letters! does it not sound
like dead men? Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid
hopelessness, can any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that of
continually handling these dead letters, and assorting them for the flames? For
by the cart-load they are annually burned. Sometimes from out the folded paper
the pale clerk takes a ring:—the finger it was meant for, perhaps, moulders in
the grave; a bank-note sent in swiftest charity:—he whom it would relieve, nor
eats nor hungers any more; pardon for those who died despairing; hope for those
who died unhoping; good tidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved
calamities. On errands of life, these letters speed to death.
Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!
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