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 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 _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 _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 skylight
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
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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’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 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 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 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
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 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 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
statement that I made; fully comprehended the 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,
occasional hissing maledictions against the 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 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:
“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, 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 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 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, 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. 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 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 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 anything 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 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 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
scriveners 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
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
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 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 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 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 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, 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
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 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 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’s_ it.”
“Oh, _prefer_? oh yes—queer word. I never use it myself. But, sir, as 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 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 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.
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-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 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 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 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
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 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 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
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 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 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 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 “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 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 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 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 commanded 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
paper-weight 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, 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.