 | The piazza tales |  |
BARTLEBY.
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, 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
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 employés, 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 tranquillity 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
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
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
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 six 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
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
quickest, steadiest creature, too, accomplishing
a great deal of work in a style not easily 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 tea-time. But no; he
insisted upon his afternoon devotions. His
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
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 anything,
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
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 with 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
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
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's 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,
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
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 a 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
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
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 backyards
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
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
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
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
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 his 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 flutelike
tone. It seemed to me that, while I had been
addressing him, he carefully revolved every
meaning; could not gainsay the irresistible
conclusion; 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, in 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's 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,
stubborn oaf behind the screen. And for his
(Nippers's) 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 everything 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 anywhere.
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
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:
“Bartleby a second time says, 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,
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 around to the Post Office, won't you?
(it was but a three minutes' walk), and see if
there is anything for me.”
“I would prefer not to.”
“You will not?”
“I prefer not.”
I staggered to my desk, and sat there in a
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
plexity 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, had 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, out 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 point-blank.
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.
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 round 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 deshabille, saying quietly that he was
sorry, but he was deeply engaged just then, and
—preferred not admitting me at present. In a
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 anything
amiss going on? Nay, that was out of the
question. It was not to be thought of for a
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 ricketty 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
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
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. Everything 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
and saw it was a savings's 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 anywhere 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
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 sel
that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor,
common sense bids the soul be 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
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 anything 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 anything 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,
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 office, 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
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
apprehension had not been without efficacy in
determining me to summary measures.
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'
it.”
“Oh, prefer? oh yes—queer word. I never
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 impared 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
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
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.
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
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-by 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-by, 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
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 find 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
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 summer lightning; at his own warm open
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 anything 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
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 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 anything 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
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
men, prompt all beings to charity and philanthropy.
At any rate, upon the occasion in
qestion, 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 anything; 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
to him.
Some days now passed, during which, at leisure
intervals I looked a little into “Edwards
on the Will,” and “Priestley 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 allwise 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
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
driving fast, some deeply-occupied legal
gentleman present, seeing Bartleby wholly
unemployed, would request him to run round
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 anticipa
tions 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
forever 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
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
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, everything 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-by, Bartleby; I am going—good-by,
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 anything; he says he prefers
not to; and he refuses to quit the premises.”
“I am very sorry, sir,” said I, with assumed
tranquillity, 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
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
in haunting the building generally, sitting
upon the banisters of the stairs by day, and
sleeping in the entry by night. Everybody 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 anything 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,”
once.
“How would a bar-tender's business suit
you? There is no trying of the eye-sight 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 anything 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
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 tranquillity returned, I
distinctly perceived that I had now done all
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
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
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 grassplatted
yards 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
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
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 a friend; 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;
nice grounds—cool apartments—hope you'll
stay with us some time—try to make it agreeable.
What will you have for dinner to-day?”
“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, ain't 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 help
pity 'em—can't help it, sir. Did you know
Monroe Edwards?” he added, touchingly, and
paused. Then, laying his hand piteously 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
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
dining?”
“Lives without dining,” said I, and closed
the eyes.
“Eh!—He's asleep, ain't he?”
“With kings and counselors,” murmured I.
There would seem little need for proceeding
further in this history. Imagination will readily
supply the meagre 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
a certain suggestive interest to me, however
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, hardly can I 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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