Bartleby, The Scrivener
A STORY OF WALL-STREET.
by Herman Melville
I am a rather elderly man. The nature of my avocations for the last
thirty years has brought me into more than ordinary contact with what
would seem an interesting and somewhat singular set of men, of whom as
yet nothing that I know of has ever been written:—I mean the
law-copyists or scriveners. I have known very many of them,
professionally and privately, and if I pleased, could relate divers
histories, at which good-natured gentlemen might smile, and sentimental
souls might weep. But I waive the biographies of all other scriveners
for a few passages in the life of Bartleby, who was a scrivener of the
strangest I ever saw or heard of. While of other law-copyists I might
write the complete life, of Bartleby nothing of that sort can be done.
I believe that no materials exist for a full and satisfactory biography
of this man. It is an irreparable loss to literature. Bartleby was one
of those beings of whom nothing is ascertainable, except from the
original sources, and in his case those are very small. What my own
astonished eyes saw of Bartleby, _that_ is all I know of him, except,
indeed, one vague report which will appear in the sequel.
Ere introducing the scrivener, as he first appeared to me, it is fit I
make some mention of myself, my 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 tranquility of a snug retreat, do a snug business among
rich men’s bonds and mortgages and title-deeds. All who know me,
consider me an eminently _safe_ man. The late John Jacob Astor, a
personage little given to poetic enthusiasm, had no hesitation in
pronouncing my first grand point to be prudence; my next, method. I do
not speak it in vanity, but simply record the fact, that I was not
unemployed in my profession by the late John Jacob Astor; a name which,
I admit, I love to repeat, for it hath a rounded and orbicular sound to
it, and rings like unto bullion. I will freely add, that I was not
insensible to the late John Jacob Astor’s good opinion.
Some time prior to the period at which this little history begins, my
avocations had been largely increased. The good old office, now extinct
in the State of New York, of a Master in Chancery, had been conferred
upon me. It was not a very arduous office, but very pleasantly
remunerative. I seldom lose my temper; much more seldom indulge in
dangerous indignation at wrongs and outrages; but I must be permitted
to be rash here and declare, that I consider the sudden and violent
abrogation of the office of Master in Chancery, by the new
Constitution, as a—premature act; inasmuch as I had counted upon a
life-lease of the profits, whereas I only received those of a few short
years. But this is by the way.
My chambers were up stairs at No.—Wall-street. At one end they looked
upon the white wall of the interior of a spacious sky-light shaft,
penetrating the building from top to bottom. This view might have been
considered rather tame than otherwise, deficient in what landscape
painters call “life.” But if so, the view from the other end of my
chambers offered, at least, a contrast, if nothing more. In that
direction my windows commanded an unobstructed view of a lofty brick
wall, black by age and everlasting shade; which wall required no
spy-glass to bring out its lurking beauties, but for the benefit of all
near-sighted spectators, was pushed up to within ten feet of my window
panes. Owing to the great height of the surrounding buildings, and my
chambers being on the second floor, the interval between this wall and
mine not a little resembled a huge square cistern.
At the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby, I had two persons
as copyists in my employment, and a promising lad as an office-boy.
First, Turkey; second, Nippers; third, Ginger Nut. These may seem
names, the like of which are not usually found in the Directory. In
truth they were nicknames, mutually conferred upon each other by my
three clerks, and were deemed expressive of their respective persons or
characters. Turkey was a short, pursy Englishman of about my own age,
that is, somewhere not far from sixty. In the morning, one might say,
his face was of a fine florid hue, but after twelve o’clock,
meridian—his dinner hour—it blazed like a grate full of Christmas
coals; and continued blazing—but, as it were, with a gradual wane—till
6 o’clock, P.M. or thereabouts, after which I saw no more of the
proprietor of the face, which gaining its meridian with the sun, seemed
to set with it, to rise, culminate, and decline the following day, with
the like regularity and undiminished glory. There are many singular
coincidences I have known in the course of my life, not the least among
which was the fact, that exactly when Turkey displayed his fullest
beams from his red and radiant countenance, just then, too, at that
critical moment, began the daily period when I considered his business
capacities as seriously disturbed for the remainder of the twenty-four
hours. Not that he was absolutely idle, or averse to business then; far
from it. The difficulty was, he was apt to be altogether too energetic.
There was a strange, inflamed, flurried, flighty recklessness of
activity about him. He would be incautious in dipping his pen into his
inkstand. All his blots upon my documents, were dropped there after
twelve o’clock, meridian. Indeed, not only would he be reckless and
sadly given to making blots in the afternoon, but some days he went
further, and was rather noisy. At such times, too, his face flamed with
augmented blazonry, as if cannel coal had been heaped on anthracite. He
made an unpleasant racket with his chair; spilled his sand-box; in
mending his pens, impatiently split them all to pieces, and threw them
on the floor in a sudden passion; stood up and leaned over his table,
boxing his papers about in a most indecorous manner, very sad to behold
in an elderly man like him. Nevertheless, as he was in many ways a most
valuable person to me, and all the time before twelve o’clock,
meridian, was the quickest, steadiest creature too, accomplishing a
great deal of work in a style not easy to be matched—for these reasons,
I was willing to overlook his eccentricities, though indeed,
occasionally, I remonstrated with him. I did this very gently, however,
because, though the civilest, nay, the blandest and most reverential of
men in the morning, yet in the afternoon he was disposed, upon
provocation, to be slightly rash with his tongue, in fact, insolent.
Now, valuing his morning services as I did, and resolved not to lose
them; yet, at the same time made uncomfortable by his inflamed ways
after twelve o’clock; and being a man of peace, unwilling by my
admonitions to call forth unseemly retorts from him; I took upon me,
one Saturday noon (he was always worse on Saturdays), to hint to him,
very kindly, that perhaps now that he was growing old, it might be well
to abridge his labors; in short, he need not come to my chambers after
twelve o’clock, but, dinner over, had best go home to his lodgings and
rest himself till teatime. But no; he insisted upon his afternoon
devotions. His countenance became intolerably fervid, as he
oratorically assured me—gesticulating with a long ruler at the other
end of the room—that if his services in the morning were useful, how
indispensable, then, in the afternoon?
“With submission, sir,” said Turkey on this occasion, “I consider
myself your right-hand man. In the morning I but marshal and deploy my
columns; but in the afternoon I put myself at their head, and gallantly
charge the foe, thus!”—and he made a violent thrust with the ruler.
“But the blots, Turkey,” intimated I.
“True,—but, with submission, sir, behold these hairs! I am getting old.
Surely, sir, a blot or two of a warm afternoon is not to be severely
urged against gray hairs. Old age—even if it blot the page—is
honorable. With submission, sir, we _both_ are getting old.”
This appeal to my fellow-feeling was hardly to be resisted. At all
events, I saw that go he would not. So I made up my mind to let him
stay, resolving, nevertheless, to see to it, that during the afternoon
he had to do with my less important papers.
Nippers, the second on my list, was a whiskered, sallow, and, upon the
whole, rather piratical-looking young man of about five and twenty. I
always deemed him the victim of two evil powers—ambition and
indigestion. The ambition was evinced by a certain impatience of the
duties of a mere copyist, an unwarrantable usurpation of strictly
professional affairs, such as the original drawing up of legal
documents. The indigestion seemed betokened in an occasional nervous
testiness and grinning irritability, causing the teeth to audibly grind
together over mistakes committed in copying; unnecessary maledictions,
hissed, rather than spoken, in the heat of business; and especially by
a continual discontent with the height of the table where he worked.
Though of a very ingenious mechanical turn, Nippers could never get
this table to suit him. He put chips under it, blocks of various sorts,
bits of pasteboard, and at last went so far as to attempt an exquisite
adjustment by final pieces of folded blotting paper. But no invention
would answer. If, for the sake of easing his back, he brought the table
lid at a sharp angle well up towards his chin, and wrote there like a
man using the steep roof of a Dutch house for his desk:—then he
declared that it stopped the circulation in his arms. If now he lowered
the table to his waistbands, and stooped over it in writing, then there
was a sore aching in his back. In short, the truth of the matter was,
Nippers knew not what he wanted. Or, if he wanted any thing, it was to
be rid of a scrivener’s table altogether. Among the manifestations of
his diseased ambition was a fondness he had for receiving visits from
certain ambiguous-looking fellows in seedy coats, whom he called his
clients. Indeed I was aware that not only was he, at times,
considerable of a ward-politician, but he occasionally did a little
business at the Justices’ courts, and was not unknown on the steps of
the Tombs. I have good reason to believe, however, that one individual
who called upon him at my chambers, and who, with a grand air, he
insisted was his client, was no other than a dun, and the alleged
title-deed, a bill. But with all his failings, and the annoyances he
caused me, Nippers, like his compatriot Turkey, was a very useful man
to me; wrote a neat, swift hand; and, when he chose, was not deficient
in a gentlemanly sort of deportment. Added to this, he always dressed
in a gentlemanly sort of way; and so, incidentally, reflected credit
upon my chambers. Whereas with respect to Turkey, I had much ado to
keep him from being a reproach to me. His clothes were apt to look oily
and smell of eating-houses. He wore his pantaloons very loose and baggy
in summer. His coats were execrable; his hat not to be handled. But
while the hat was a thing of indifference to me, inasmuch as his
natural civility and deference, as a dependent Englishman, always led
him to doff it the moment he entered the room, yet his coat was another
matter. Concerning his coats, I reasoned with him; but with no effect.
The truth was, I suppose, that a man of so small an income, could not
afford to sport such a lustrous face and a lustrous coat at one and the
same time. As Nippers once observed, Turkey’s money went chiefly for
red ink. One winter day I presented Turkey with a highly-respectable
looking coat of my own, a padded gray coat, of a most comfortable
warmth, and which buttoned straight up from the knee to the neck. I
thought Turkey would appreciate the favor, and abate his rashness and
obstreperousness of afternoons. But no. I verily believe that buttoning
himself up in so downy and blanket-like a coat had a pernicious effect
upon him; upon the same principle that too much oats are bad for
horses. In fact, precisely as a rash, restive horse is said to feel his
oats, so Turkey felt his coat. It made him insolent. He was a man whom
prosperity harmed.
Though concerning the self-indulgent habits of Turkey I had my own
private surmises, yet touching Nippers I was well persuaded that
whatever might be his faults in other respects, he was, at least, a
temperate young man. But indeed, nature herself seemed to have been his
vintner, and at his birth charged him so thoroughly with an irritable,
brandy-like disposition, that all subsequent potations were needless.
When I consider how, amid the stillness of my chambers, Nippers would
sometimes impatiently rise from his seat, and stooping over his table,
spread his arms wide apart, seize the whole desk, and move it, and jerk
it, with a grim, grinding motion on the floor, as if the table were a
perverse voluntary agent, intent on thwarting and vexing him; I plainly
perceive that for Nippers, brandy and water were altogether
superfluous.
It was fortunate for me that, owing to its peculiar
cause—indigestion—the irritability and consequent nervousness of
Nippers, were mainly observable in the morning, while in the afternoon
he was comparatively mild. So that Turkey’s paroxysms only coming on
about twelve o’clock, I never had to do with their eccentricities at
one time. Their fits relieved each other like guards. When Nippers’ was
on, Turkey’s was off; and _vice versa_. This was a good natural
arrangement under the circumstances.
Ginger Nut, the third on my list, was a lad some twelve years old. His
father was a carman, ambitious of seeing his son on the bench instead
of a cart, before he died. So he sent him to my office as student at
law, errand boy, and cleaner and sweeper, at the rate of one dollar a
week. He had a little desk to himself, but he did not use it much. Upon
inspection, the drawer exhibited a great array of the shells of various
sorts of nuts. Indeed, to this quick-witted youth the whole noble
science of the law was contained in a nut-shell. Not the least among
the employments of Ginger Nut, as well as one which he discharged with
the most alacrity, was his duty as cake and apple purveyor for Turkey
and Nippers. Copying law papers being proverbially dry, husky sort of
business, my two scriveners were fain to moisten their mouths very
often with Spitzenbergs to be had at the numerous stalls nigh the
Custom House and Post Office. Also, they sent Ginger Nut very
frequently for that peculiar cake—small, flat, round, and very
spicy—after which he had been named by them. Of a cold morning when
business was but dull, Turkey would gobble up scores of these cakes, as
if they were mere wafers—indeed they sell them at the rate of six or
eight for a penny—the scrape of his pen blending with the crunching of
the crisp particles in his mouth. Of all the fiery afternoon blunders
and flurried rashnesses of Turkey, was his once moistening a
ginger-cake between his lips, and clapping it on to a mortgage for a
seal. I came within an ace of dismissing him then. But he mollified me
by making an oriental bow, and saying—“With submission, sir, it was
generous of me to find you in stationery on my own account.”
Now my original business—that of a conveyancer and title hunter, and
drawer-up of recondite documents of all sorts—was considerably
increased by receiving the master’s office. There was now great work
for scriveners. Not only must I push the clerks already with me, but I
must have additional help. In answer to my advertisement, a motionless
young man one morning, stood upon my office threshold, the door being
open, for it was summer. I can see that figure now—pallidly neat,
pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn! It was Bartleby.
After a few words touching his qualifications, I engaged him, glad to
have among my corps of copyists a man of so singularly sedate an
aspect, which I thought might operate beneficially upon the flighty
temper of Turkey, and the fiery one of Nippers.
I should have stated before that ground glass folding-doors divided my
premises into two parts, one of which was occupied by my scriveners,
the other by myself. According to my humor I threw open these doors, or
closed them. I resolved to assign Bartleby a corner by the
folding-doors, but on my side of them, so as to have this quiet man
within easy call, in case any trifling thing was to be done. I placed
his desk close up to a small side-window in that part of the room, a
window which originally had afforded a lateral view of certain grimy
back-yards and bricks, but which, owing to subsequent erections,
commanded at present no view at all, though it gave some light. Within
three feet of the panes was a wall, and the light came down from far
above, between two lofty buildings, as from a very small opening in a
dome. Still further to a satisfactory arrangement, I procured a high
green folding screen, which might entirely isolate Bartleby from my
sight, though not remove him from my voice. And thus, in a manner,
privacy and society were conjoined.
At first Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As if long
famishing for something to copy, he seemed to gorge himself on my
documents. There was no pause for digestion. He ran a day and night
line, copying by sun-light and by candle-light. I should have been
quite delighted with his application, had he been cheerfully
industrious. But he wrote on silently, palely, mechanically.
It is, of course, an indispensable part of a scrivener’s business to
verify the accuracy of his copy, word by word. Where there are two or
more scriveners in an office, they assist each other in this
examination, one reading from the copy, the other holding the original.
It is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair. I can readily
imagine that to some sanguine temperaments it would be altogether
intolerable. For example, I cannot credit that the mettlesome poet
Byron would have contentedly sat down with Bartleby to examine a law
document of, say five hundred pages, closely written in a crimpy hand.
Now and then, in the haste of business, it had been my habit to assist
in comparing some brief document myself, calling Turkey or Nippers for
this purpose. One object I had in placing Bartleby so handy to me
behind the screen, was to avail myself of his services on such trivial
occasions. It was on the third day, I think, of his being with me, and
before any necessity had arisen for having his own writing examined,
that, being much hurried to complete a small affair I had in hand, I
abruptly called to Bartleby. In my haste and natural expectancy of
instant compliance, I sat with my head bent over the original on my
desk, and my right hand sideways, and somewhat nervously extended with
the copy, so that immediately upon emerging from his retreat, Bartleby
might snatch it and proceed to business without the least delay.
In this very attitude did I sit when I called to him, rapidly stating
what it was I wanted him to do—namely, to examine a small paper with
me. Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when without moving
from his privacy, Bartleby in a singularly mild, firm voice, replied,
“I would prefer not to.”
I sat awhile in perfect silence, rallying my stunned faculties.
Immediately it occurred to me that my ears had deceived me, or Bartleby
had entirely misunderstood my meaning. I repeated my request in the
clearest tone I could assume. But in quite as clear a one came the
previous reply, “I would prefer not to.”
“Prefer not to,” echoed I, rising in high excitement, and crossing the
room with a stride. “What do you mean? Are you moon-struck? I want you
to help me compare this sheet here—take it,” and I thrust it towards
him.
“I would prefer not to,” said he.
I looked at him steadfastly. His face was leanly composed; his gray eye
dimly calm. Not a wrinkle of agitation rippled him. Had there been the
least uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinence in his manner; in
other words, had there been any thing ordinarily human about him,
doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises. But
as it was, I should have as soon thought of turning my pale
plaster-of-paris bust of Cicero out of doors. I stood gazing at him
awhile, as he went on with his own writing, and then reseated myself at
my desk. This is very strange, thought I. What had one best do? But my
business hurried me. I concluded to forget the matter for the present,
reserving it for my future leisure. So calling Nippers from the other
room, the paper was speedily examined.
A few days after this, Bartleby concluded four lengthy documents, being
quadruplicates of a week’s testimony taken before me in my High Court
of Chancery. It became necessary to examine them. It was an important
suit, and great accuracy was imperative. Having all things arranged I
called Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut from the next room, meaning to
place the four copies in the hands of my four clerks, while I should
read from the original. Accordingly Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut had
taken their seats in a row, each with his document in hand, when I
called to Bartleby to join this interesting group.
“Bartleby! quick, I am waiting.”
I heard a slow scrape of his chair legs on the uncarpeted floor, and
soon he appeared standing at the entrance of his hermitage.
“What is wanted?” said he mildly.
“The copies, the copies,” said I hurriedly. “We are going to examine
them. There”—and I held towards him the fourth quadruplicate.
“I would prefer not to,” he said, and gently disappeared behind the
screen.
For a few moments I was turned into a pillar of salt, standing at the
head of my seated column of clerks. Recovering myself, I advanced
towards the screen, and demanded the reason for such extraordinary
conduct.
“_Why_ do you refuse?”
“I would prefer not to.”
With any other man I should have flown outright into a dreadful
passion, scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from
my presence. But there was something about Bartleby that not only
strangely disarmed me, but in a wonderful manner touched and
disconcerted me. I began to reason with him.
“These are your own copies we are about to examine. It is labor saving
to you, because one examination will answer for your four papers. It is
common usage. Every copyist is bound to help examine his copy. Is it
not so? Will you not speak? Answer!”
“I prefer not to,” he replied in a flute-like tone. It seemed to me
that while I had been addressing him, he carefully revolved every
statement that I made; fully comprehended the meaning; could not
gainsay the irresistible conclusions; but, at the same time, some
paramount consideration prevailed with him to reply as he did.
“You are decided, then, not to comply with my request—a request made
according to common usage and common sense?”
He briefly gave me to understand that on that point my judgment was
sound. Yes: his decision was irreversible.
It is not seldom the case that when a man is browbeaten in some
unprecedented and violently unreasonable way, he begins to stagger in
his own plainest faith. He begins, as it were, vaguely to surmise that,
wonderful as it may be, all the justice and all the reason is on the
other side. Accordingly, if any disinterested persons are present, he
turns to them for some reinforcement for his own faltering mind.
“Turkey,” said I, “what do you think of this? Am I not right?”
“With submission, sir,” said Turkey, with his blandest tone, “I think
that you are.”
“Nippers,” said I, “what do _you_ think of it?”
“I think I should kick him out of the office.”
(The reader of nice perceptions will here perceive that, it being
morning, Turkey’s answer is couched in polite and tranquil terms, but
Nippers replies in ill-tempered ones. Or, to repeat a previous
sentence, Nippers’ ugly mood was on duty and Turkey’s off.)
“Ginger Nut,” said I, willing to enlist the smallest suffrage in my
behalf, “what do you think of it?”
“I think, sir, he’s a little _luny_,” replied Ginger Nut with a grin.
“You hear what they say,” said I, turning towards the screen, “come
forth and do your duty.”
But he vouchsafed no reply. I pondered a moment in sore perplexity. But
once more business hurried me. I determined again to postpone the
consideration of this dilemma to my future leisure. With a little
trouble we made out to examine the papers without Bartleby, though at
every page or two, Turkey deferentially dropped his opinion that this
proceeding was quite out of the common; while Nippers, twitching in his
chair with a dyspeptic nervousness, ground out between his set teeth
occasional hissing maledictions against the stubborn oaf behind the
screen. And for his (Nippers’) part, this was the first and the last
time he would do another man’s business without pay.
Meanwhile Bartleby sat in his hermitage, oblivious to every thing but
his own peculiar business there.
Some days passed, the scrivener being employed upon another lengthy
work. His late remarkable conduct led me to regard his ways narrowly. I
observed that he never went to dinner; indeed that he never went any
where. As yet I had never of my personal knowledge known him to be
outside of my office. He was a perpetual sentry in the corner. At about
eleven o’clock though, in the morning, I noticed that Ginger Nut would
advance toward the opening in Bartleby’s screen, as if silently
beckoned thither by a gesture invisible to me where I sat. The boy
would then leave the office jingling a few pence, and reappear with a
handful of ginger-nuts which he delivered in the hermitage, receiving
two of the cakes for his trouble.
He lives, then, on ginger-nuts, thought I; never eats a dinner,
properly speaking; he must be a vegetarian then; but no; he never eats
even vegetables, he eats nothing but ginger-nuts. My mind then ran on
in reveries concerning the probable effects upon the human constitution
of living entirely on ginger-nuts. Ginger-nuts are so called because
they contain ginger as one of their peculiar constituents, and the
final flavoring one. Now what was ginger? A hot, spicy thing. Was
Bartleby hot and spicy? Not at all. Ginger, then, had no effect upon
Bartleby. Probably he preferred it should have none.
Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance. If the
individual so resisted be of a not inhumane temper, and the resisting
one perfectly harmless in his passivity; then, in the better moods of
the former, he will endeavor charitably to construe to his imagination
what proves impossible to be solved by his judgment. Even so, for the
most part, I regarded Bartleby and his ways. Poor fellow! thought I, he
means no mischief; it is plain he intends no insolence; his aspect
sufficiently evinces that his eccentricities are involuntary. He is
useful to me. I can get along with him. If I turn him away, the chances
are he will fall in with some less indulgent employer, and then he will
be rudely treated, and perhaps driven forth miserably to starve. Yes.
Here I can cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval. To befriend
Bartleby; to humor him in his strange willfulness, will cost me little
or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a
sweet morsel for my conscience. But this mood was not invariable with
me. The passiveness of Bartleby sometimes irritated me. I felt
strangely goaded on to encounter him in new opposition, to elicit some
angry spark from him answerable to my own. But indeed I might as well
have essayed to strike fire with my knuckles against a bit of Windsor
soap. But one afternoon the evil impulse in me mastered me, and the
following little scene ensued:
“Bartleby,” said I, “when those papers are all copied, I will compare
them with you.”
“I would prefer not to.”
“How? Surely you do not mean to persist in that mulish vagary?”
No answer.
I threw open the folding-doors near by, and turning upon Turkey and
Nippers, exclaimed in an excited manner—
“He says, a second time, he won’t examine his papers. What do you think
of it, Turkey?”
It was afternoon, be it remembered. Turkey sat glowing like a brass
boiler, his bald head steaming, his hands reeling among his blotted
papers.
“Think of it?” roared Turkey; “I think I’ll just step behind his
screen, and black his eyes for him!”
So saying, Turkey rose to his feet and threw his arms into a pugilistic
position. He was hurrying away to make good his promise, when I
detained him, alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing Turkey’s
combativeness after dinner.
“Sit down, Turkey,” said I, “and hear what Nippers has to say. What do
you think of it, Nippers? Would I not be justified in immediately
dismissing Bartleby?”
“Excuse me, that is for you to decide, sir. I think his conduct quite
unusual, and indeed unjust, as regards Turkey and myself. But it may
only be a passing whim.”
“Ah,” exclaimed I, “you have strangely changed your mind then—you speak
very gently of him now.”
“All beer,” cried Turkey; “gentleness is effects of beer—Nippers and I
dined together to-day. You see how gentle _I_ am, sir. Shall I go and
black his eyes?”
“You refer to Bartleby, I suppose. No, not to-day, Turkey,” I replied;
“pray, put up your fists.”
I closed the doors, and again advanced towards Bartleby. I felt
additional incentives tempting me to my fate. I burned to be rebelled
against again. I remembered that Bartleby never left the office.
“Bartleby,” said I, “Ginger Nut is away; just step round to the Post
Office, won’t you? (it was but a three minute walk,) and see if there
is any thing for me.”
“I would prefer not to.”
“You _will_ not?”
“I _prefer_ not.”
I staggered to my desk, and sat there in a deep study. My blind
inveteracy returned. Was there any other thing in which I could procure
myself to be ignominiously repulsed by this lean, penniless wight?—my
hired clerk? What added thing is there, perfectly reasonable, that he
will be sure to refuse to do?
“Bartleby!”
No answer.
“Bartleby,” in a louder tone.
No answer.
“Bartleby,” I roared.
Like a very ghost, agreeably to the laws of magical invocation, at the
third summons, he appeared at the entrance of his hermitage.
“Go to the next room, and tell Nippers to come to me.”
“I prefer not to,” he respectfully and slowly said, and mildly
disappeared.
“Very good, Bartleby,” said I, in a quiet sort of serenely severe
self-possessed tone, intimating the unalterable purpose of some
terrible retribution very close at hand. At the moment I half intended
something of the kind. But upon the whole, as it was drawing towards my
dinner-hour, I thought it best to put on my hat and walk home for the
day, suffering much from perplexity and distress of mind.
Shall I acknowledge it? The conclusion of this whole business was, that
it soon became a fixed fact of my chambers, that a pale young
scrivener, by the name of Bartleby, and a desk there; that he copied
for me at the usual rate of four cents a folio (one hundred words); but
he was permanently exempt from examining the work done by him, that
duty being transferred to Turkey and Nippers, one of compliment
doubtless to their superior acuteness; moreover, said Bartleby was
never on any account to be dispatched on the most trivial errand of any
sort; and that even if entreated to take upon him such a matter, it was
generally understood that he would prefer not to—in other words, that
he would refuse pointblank.
As days passed on, I became considerably reconciled to Bartleby. His
steadiness, his freedom from all dissipation, his incessant industry
(except when he chose to throw himself into a standing revery behind
his screen), his great stillness, his unalterableness of demeanor under
all circumstances, made him a valuable acquisition. One prime thing was
this,—_he was always there;_—first in the morning, continually through
the day, and the last at night. I had a singular confidence in his
honesty. I felt my most precious papers perfectly safe in his hands.
Sometimes to be sure I could not, for the very soul of me, avoid
falling into sudden spasmodic passions with him. For it was exceeding
difficult to bear in mind all the time those strange peculiarities,
privileges, and unheard of exemptions, forming the tacit stipulations
on Bartleby’s part under which he remained in my office. Now and then,
in the eagerness of dispatching pressing business, I would
inadvertently summon Bartleby, in a short, rapid tone, to put his
finger, say, on the incipient tie of a bit of red tape with which I was
about compressing some papers. Of course, from behind the screen the
usual answer, “I prefer not to,” was sure to come; and then, how could
a human creature with the common infirmities of our nature, refrain
from bitterly exclaiming upon such perverseness—such unreasonableness.
However, every added repulse of this sort which I received only tended
to lessen the probability of my repeating the inadvertence.
Here it must be said, that according to the custom of most legal
gentlemen occupying chambers in densely-populated law buildings, there
were several keys to my door. One was kept by a woman residing in the
attic, which person weekly scrubbed and daily swept and dusted my
apartments. Another was kept by Turkey for convenience sake. The third
I sometimes carried in my own pocket. The fourth I knew not who had.
Now, one Sunday morning I happened to go to Trinity Church, to hear a
celebrated preacher, and finding myself rather early on the ground, I
thought I would walk around to my chambers for a while. Luckily I had
my key with me; but upon applying it to the lock, I found it resisted
by something inserted from the inside. Quite surprised, I called out;
when to my consternation a key was turned from within; and thrusting
his lean visage at me, and holding the door ajar, the apparition of
Bartleby appeared, in his shirt sleeves, and otherwise in a strangely
tattered dishabille, saying quietly that he was sorry, but he was
deeply engaged just then, and—preferred not admitting me at present. In
a brief word or two, he moreover added, that perhaps I had better walk
round the block two or three times, and by that time he would probably
have concluded his affairs.
Now, the utterly unsurmised appearance of Bartleby, tenanting my
law-chambers of a Sunday morning, with his cadaverously gentlemanly
_nonchalance_, yet withal firm and self-possessed, had such a strange
effect upon me, that incontinently I slunk away from my own door, and
did as desired. But not without sundry twinges of impotent rebellion
against the mild effrontery of this unaccountable scrivener. Indeed, it
was his wonderful mildness chiefly, which not only disarmed me, but
unmanned me, as it were. For I consider that one, for the time, is a
sort of unmanned when he tranquilly permits his hired clerk to dictate
to him, and order him away from his own premises. Furthermore, I was
full of uneasiness as to what Bartleby could possibly be doing in my
office in his shirt sleeves, and in an otherwise dismantled condition
of a Sunday morning. Was any thing amiss going on? Nay, that was out of
the question. It was not to be thought of for a moment that Bartleby
was an immoral person. But what could he be doing there?—copying? Nay
again, whatever might be his eccentricities, Bartleby was an eminently
decorous person. He would be the last man to sit down to his desk in
any state approaching to nudity. Besides, it was Sunday; and there was
something about Bartleby that forbade the supposition that he would by
any secular occupation violate the proprieties of the day.
Nevertheless, my mind was not pacified; and full of a restless
curiosity, at last I returned to the door. Without hindrance I inserted
my key, opened it, and entered. Bartleby was not to be seen. I looked
round anxiously, peeped behind his screen; but it was very plain that
he was gone. Upon more closely examining the place, I surmised that for
an indefinite period Bartleby must have ate, dressed, and slept in my
office, and that too without plate, mirror, or bed. The cushioned seat
of a rickety old sofa in one corner bore the faint impress of a lean,
reclining form. Rolled away under his desk, I found a blanket; under
the empty grate, a blacking box and brush; on a chair, a tin basin,
with soap and a ragged towel; in a newspaper a few crumbs of
ginger-nuts and a morsel of cheese. Yes, thought I, it is evident
enough that Bartleby has been making his home here, keeping bachelor’s
hall all by himself. Immediately then the thought came sweeping across
me, What miserable friendlessness and loneliness are here revealed! His
poverty is great; but his solitude, how horrible! Think of it. Of a
Sunday, Wall-street is deserted as Petra; and every night of every day
it is an emptiness. This building too, which of week-days hums with
industry and life, at nightfall echoes with sheer vacancy, and all
through Sunday is forlorn. And here Bartleby makes his home; sole
spectator of a solitude which he has seen all populous—a sort of
innocent and transformed Marius brooding among the ruins of Carthage!
For the first time in my life a feeling of overpowering stinging
melancholy seized me. Before, I had never experienced aught but a
not-unpleasing sadness. The bond of a common humanity now drew me
irresistibly to gloom. A fraternal melancholy! For both I and Bartleby
were sons of Adam. I remembered the bright silks and sparkling faces I
had seen that day, in gala trim, swan-like sailing down the Mississippi
of Broadway; and I contrasted them with the pallid copyist, and thought
to myself, Ah, happiness courts the light, so we deem the world is gay;
but misery hides aloof, so we deem that misery there is none. These sad
fancyings—chimeras, doubtless, of a sick and silly brain—led on to
other and more special thoughts, concerning the eccentricities of
Bartleby. Presentiments of strange discoveries hovered round me. The
scrivener’s pale form appeared to me laid out, among uncaring
strangers, in its shivering winding sheet.
Suddenly I was attracted by Bartleby’s closed desk, the key in open
sight left in the lock.
I mean no mischief, seek the gratification of no heartless curiosity,
thought I; besides, the desk is mine, and its contents too, so I will
make bold to look within. Every thing was methodically arranged, the
papers smoothly placed. The pigeon holes were deep, and removing the
files of documents, I groped into their recesses. Presently I felt
something there, and dragged it out. It was an old bandanna
handkerchief, heavy and knotted. I opened it, and saw it was a savings’
bank.
I now recalled all the quiet mysteries which I had noted in the man. I
remembered that he never spoke but to answer; that though at intervals
he had considerable time to himself, yet I had never seen him
reading—no, not even a newspaper; that for long periods he would stand
looking out, at his pale window behind the screen, upon the dead brick
wall; I was quite sure he never visited any refectory or eating house;
while his pale face clearly indicated that he never drank beer like
Turkey, or tea and coffee even, like other men; that he never went any
where in particular that I could learn; never went out for a walk,
unless indeed that was the case at present; that he had declined
telling who he was, or whence he came, or whether he had any relatives
in the world; that though so thin and pale, he never complained of ill
health. And more than all, I remembered a certain unconscious air of
pallid—how shall I call it?—of pallid haughtiness, say, or rather an
austere reserve about him, which had positively awed me into my tame
compliance with his eccentricities, when I had feared to ask him to do
the slightest incidental thing for me, even though I might know, from
his long-continued motionlessness, that behind his screen he must be
standing in one of those dead-wall reveries of his.
Revolving all these things, and coupling them with the recently
discovered fact that he made my office his constant abiding place and
home, and not forgetful of his morbid moodiness; revolving all these
things, a prudential feeling began to steal over me. My first emotions
had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just in
proportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew to my
imagination, did that same melancholy merge into fear, that pity into
repulsion. So true it is, and so terrible too, that up to a certain
point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but,
in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err who
would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness
of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of
remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not
seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot
lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul rid of it. What I
saw that morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim of
innate and incurable disorder. I might give alms to his body; but his
body did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I
could not reach.
I did not accomplish the purpose of going to Trinity Church that
morning. Somehow, the things I had seen disqualified me for the time
from church-going. I walked homeward, thinking what I would do with
Bartleby. Finally, I resolved upon this;—I would put certain calm
questions to him the next morning, touching his history, etc., and if
he declined to answer them openly and unreservedly (and I supposed he
would prefer not), then to give him a twenty dollar bill over and above
whatever I might owe him, and tell him his services were no longer
required; but that if in any other way I could assist him, I would be
happy to do so, especially if he desired to return to his native place,
wherever that might be, I would willingly help to defray the expenses.
Moreover, if, after reaching home, he found himself at any time in want
of aid, a letter from him would be sure of a reply.
The next morning came.
“Bartleby,” said I, gently calling to him behind his screen.
No reply.
“Bartleby,” said I, in a still gentler tone, “come here; I am not going
to ask you to do any thing you would prefer not to do—I simply wish to
speak to you.”
Upon this he noiselessly slid into view.
“Will you tell me, Bartleby, where you were born?”
“I would prefer not to.”
“Will you tell me _any thing_ about yourself?”
“I would prefer not to.”
“But what reasonable objection can you have to speak to me? I feel
friendly towards you.”
He did not look at me while I spoke, but kept his glance fixed upon my
bust of Cicero, which as I then sat, was directly behind me, some six
inches above my head.
“What is your answer, Bartleby?” said I, after waiting a considerable
time for a reply, during which his countenance remained immovable, only
there was the faintest conceivable tremor of the white attenuated
mouth.
“At present I prefer to give no answer,” he said, and retired into his
hermitage.
It was rather weak in me I confess, but his manner on this occasion
nettled me. Not only did there seem to lurk in it a certain calm
disdain, but his perverseness seemed ungrateful, considering the
undeniable good usage and indulgence he had received from me.
Again I sat ruminating what I should do. Mortified as I was at his
behavior, and resolved as I had been to dismiss him when I entered my
offices, nevertheless I strangely felt something superstitious knocking
at my heart, and forbidding me to carry out my purpose, and denouncing
me for a villain if I dared to breathe one bitter word against this
forlornest of mankind. At last, familiarly drawing my chair behind his
screen, I sat down and said: “Bartleby, never mind then about revealing
your history; but let me entreat you, as a friend, to comply as far as
may be with the usages of this office. Say now you will help to examine
papers to-morrow or next day: in short, say now that in a day or two
you will begin to be a little reasonable:—say so, Bartleby.”
“At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable,” was his
mildly cadaverous reply.
Just then the folding-doors opened, and Nippers approached. He seemed
suffering from an unusually bad night’s rest, induced by severer
indigestion than common. He overheard those final words of Bartleby.
“_Prefer not_, eh?” gritted Nippers—“I’d _prefer_ him, if I were you,
sir,” addressing me—“I’d _prefer_ him; I’d give him preferences, the
stubborn mule! What is it, sir, pray, that he _prefers_ not to do now?”
Bartleby moved not a limb.
“Mr. Nippers,” said I, “I’d prefer that you would withdraw for the
present.”
Somehow, of late I had got into the way of involuntarily using this
word “prefer” upon all sorts of not exactly suitable occasions. And I
trembled to think that my contact with the scrivener had already and
seriously affected me in a mental way. And what further and deeper
aberration might it not yet produce? This apprehension had not been
without efficacy in determining me to summary means.
As Nippers, looking very sour and sulky, was departing, Turkey blandly
and deferentially approached.
“With submission, sir,” said he, “yesterday I was thinking about
Bartleby here, and I think that if he would but prefer to take a quart
of good ale every day, it would do much towards mending him, and
enabling him to assist in examining his papers.”
“So you have got the word too,” said I, slightly excited.
“With submission, what word, sir,” asked Turkey, respectfully crowding
himself into the contracted space behind the screen, and by so doing,
making me jostle the scrivener. “What word, sir?”
“I would prefer to be left alone here,” said Bartleby, as if offended
at being mobbed in his privacy.
“_That’s_ the word, Turkey,” said I—“that’s it.”
“Oh, _prefer_? oh yes—queer word. I never use it myself. But, sir, as I
was saying, if he would but prefer—”
“Turkey,” interrupted I, “you will please withdraw.”
“Oh certainly, sir, if you prefer that I should.”
As he opened the folding-door to retire, Nippers at his desk caught a
glimpse of me, and asked whether I would prefer to have a certain paper
copied on blue paper or white. He did not in the least roguishly accent
the word prefer. It was plain that it involuntarily rolled from his
tongue. I thought to myself, surely I must get rid of a demented man,
who already has in some degree turned the tongues, if not the heads of
myself and clerks. But I thought it prudent not to break the dismission
at once.
The next day I noticed that Bartleby did nothing but stand at his
window in his dead-wall revery. Upon asking him why he did not write,
he said that he had decided upon doing no more writing.
“Why, how now? what next?” exclaimed I, “do no more writing?”
“No more.”
“And what is the reason?”
“Do you not see the reason for yourself,” he indifferently replied.
I looked steadfastly at him, and perceived that his eyes looked dull
and glazed. Instantly it occurred to me, that his unexampled diligence
in copying by his dim window for the first few weeks of his stay with
me might have temporarily impaired his vision.
I was touched. I said something in condolence with him. I hinted that
of course he did wisely in abstaining from writing for a while; and
urged him to embrace that opportunity of taking wholesome exercise in
the open air. This, however, he did not do. A few days after this, my
other clerks being absent, and being in a great hurry to dispatch
certain letters by the mail, I thought that, having nothing else
earthly to do, Bartleby would surely be less inflexible than usual, and
carry these letters to the post-office. But he blankly declined. So,
much to my inconvenience, I went myself.
Still added days went by. Whether Bartleby’s eyes improved or not, I
could not say. To all appearance, I thought they did. But when I asked
him if they did, he vouchsafed no answer. At all events, he would do no
copying. At last, in reply to my urgings, he informed me that he had
permanently given up copying.