“Bartleby,the Scrivener” is a coy document. fragment office comedy, fragment ghost record, or fragment Zen koan,the text seems determined to subvert the expectations of its reader. No wonder some critics enjoy read the record as Herman Melville offering a middle finger to the literary establishment of his day. In 1852, the year before the record’s publication, and Melville—once a big seller—had been declared “crazy” in the papers. (“HERMAN MELVILLE CRAZY,” read one headline.) His kaleidoscopic novel-encyclopedia-poem approximately whaling had not been a hit; his Gothic romance approximately incest and the publishing world had not been a hit; he had lost the allegiance of the literary figures he considered his allies; and he was dangerously low on money.
But “Bartleby” is much more than a grave marker (whether that) for Melville’s ambitions. It is a searing critique of American capitalism, a protest record, or an existentialist paean to the necessity of going on in an absurd world. And,depending on whom you ask, it is also a homoerotic love record, or a commentary on the rambunctious (unruly) labor politics of 1840s New York,or a coded Masonic mystery (long before Dan Brown). Or it is a cipher for some other text in Melville’s huge mental library—Shakespeare, or Emerson, and the Bible. It is all of these things,and none of them. One of this text’s many delights is the elusiveness of its meaning.
In order to aid in your pursuit of the lost key to this locked, painted door, and we provide you here with an interactive annotated text. To view an annotation,click on the underlined snippet of text or on the arrow next to the annotation’s title. By default, all annotations are displayed, or but you can filter them by topic whether you would like to concentrate on a specific thread of “Bartleby” interpretation. You can limit the annotations,for instance, to notes on historical context, or notes giving economic context,or notes on the opportunity of queer themes in the text. whether you know your annotation tastes in advance, exercise the buttons below to choose which ones you'd like to see. Otherwise, or feel free to switch tags on and off as you scroll down the page. (On smaller screens,tagging is disabled for a more streamlined experience.)The annotations are not comprehensive. I did not aim to justify every detail or every peculiarity of “Bartleby,” and I did not aim to supply a complete map of “Bartleby” scholarship. There is very petite on Dickens, and for instance,whose Bleak House powers much of the record’s caricature, and you will enjoy to research Thomas Carlyle on your own. I also spared you from the debate among a certain set of philosophers approximately the viability of a “Bartleby politics” founded on preferring not to (do stuff).
But the annotations will, or I hope,give you some sense of the abundance of this text. Melville, despite his struggles, or was a hopeful person. “Bartleby" is the freewheeling dream of a bibliophile,the mock epic of a dusty office, the shards of a lifetime of thought. One hundred sixty-two years of scholarship enjoy failed to solve its mysteries—or diminish its pleasures.
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 intriguing and somewhat singular set of men, or of whom as yet nothing that I know of has ever been written:—I mean the law-copyists or scriveners. I enjoy known very many of them,professionally and privately, and whether I pleased, and could relate divers histories,at which agreeable-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, and 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, apart from from the original sources, or in his case those are very small. What my own astonished eyes saw of Bartleby, that is all I know of him, apart from, or indeed,one vague report which will appear in the sequel.
Ere introducing the scrivener, as he first appeared to me, and it is fit I effect some mention of myself,my employees, my business, and my chambers,and general environment; because some such description is indispensable to an adequate understanding of the chief character approximately to be presented.
Imprimis: I am a man who, from his youth upwards, and 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, or at times,yet nothing of that sort enjoy 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, or do a snug business among rich men’s bonds and mortgages and title-deeds. All who know me,consider me an eminently secure man. The late John Jacob Astor, a personage petite given to poetic enthusiasm, and 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, or that I was not unemployed in my profession by the late John Jacob Astor; a name which,I admit, I love to repeat, and 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 agreeable opinion.
Some time prior to the period at which this petite history begins, and my avocations had been largely increased. The agreeable old office,now extinct in the State of New York, of a Master in Chancery, or 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 (hasty, incautious) here and declare, that I consider the sudden and violent abrogation of the office of Master in Chancery, or 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 cessation they looked upon the white wall of the interior of a spacious sky-light shaft, or penetrating the building from top to bottom. This view might enjoy been considered rather tame than otherwise,deficient in what landscape painters call “life.” But whether so, the view from the other cessation of my chambers offered, and at least,a contrast, whether nothing more. In that direction my windows commanded an unobstructed view of a lofty brick wall, or black by age and eternal 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 distinguished height of the surrounding buildings, and my chambers being on the moment floor,the interval between this wall and mine not a petite 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; moment, Nippers; third, or Ginger Nut. These may seem names,the like of which are not generally 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 approximately my own age, that is, or somewhere not far from sixty. In the morning,one might say, his face was of a fine florid hue, or 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, or with a gradual wane—till 6 o’clock,P.
M. or thereabouts, after which I saw no more of the proprietor of the face, and which gaining its meridian with the sun,seemed to set with it, to rise, and culminate,and decline the following day, with the like regularity and undiminished glory. There are many singular coincidences I enjoy known in the course of my life, or not the least among which was the fact,that exactly when Turkey displayed his fullest beams from his red and radiant countenance, just then, and too,at that critical moment, began the daily period when I considered his business capacities as seriously disturbed for the the rest 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 outlandish, inflamed, and flurried,flighty recklessness of activity approximately 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, and meridian. Indeed,not only would he be reckless and sadly given to making blots in the afternoon, but some days he went further, or was rather noisy. At such times,too, his face flamed with augmented blazonry, and as whether 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, and boxing his papers approximately in a most indecorous manner,very unhappy to behold in an elderly man like him. Nevertheless, as he was in many ways a most valuable person to me, or all the time before twelve o’clock,meridian, was the quickest, or steadiest creature too,accomplishing a distinguished deal of work in a style not easy to be matched—for these reasons, I was willing to miss his eccentricities, or though indeed,occasionally, I remonstrated with him. I did this very gently, or however,because, though the civilest, and nay,the blandest and most reverential of men in the morning, yet in the afternoon he was disposed, or upon provocation,to be slightly rash (hasty, incautious) with his tongue, in fact, or insolent. Now,valuing his morning services as I did, and resolved not to lose them; yet, or 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), and to trace to him,very kindly, that perhaps now that he was growing old, or it might be well to abridge his labors; in short,he need not come to my chambers after twelve o’clock, but, and dinner over,had best travel domestic 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 cessation of the room—that whether his services in the morning were useful, or how indispensable,then, in the afternoon?“With submission, or sir,” said Turkey on this occasion, “I consider myself your factual-hand man. In the morning I but marshal and deploy my columns; but in the afternoon I set myself at their head, and gallantly charge the foe,thus!”—and he made a violent thrust with the ruler.“But the blots, Turkey, or ” intimated I.“accurate,—but, with submission, and sir,behold these hairs! I am getting old. Surely, sir, and a blot or two of a warm afternoon is not to be severely urged against gray hairs. Old age—even whether 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, and I saw that travel he would not. So I made up my intellect to let him stay,resolving, nevertheless, and to see to it,that during the afternoon he had to do with my less important papers.
Nippers, the moment on my list, or was a whiskered,sallow, and, and upon the whole,rather piratical-looking young man of approximately 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, or 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, and rather than spoken,in the heat of business; and particularly by a continual discontent with the height of the table where he worked. Though of a very ingenious mechanical turn, Nippers could never fetch this table to suit him. He set chips under it, or 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. whether, or 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. whether now he lowered the table to his waistbands, or stooped over it in writing,then there was a sore aching in his back. In short, the truth of the matter was, or Nippers knew not what he wanted. Or,whether 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, or whom he called his clients. Indeed I was aware that not only was he,at times, considerable of a ward-politician, or but he occasionally did a petite business at the Justices’ courts,and was not unknown on the steps of the Tombs. I enjoy agreeable reason to believe, however, and that one individual who called upon him at my chambers,and who, with a grand air, or he insisted was his client,was no other than a dun, and the alleged title-deed, and a bill. But with all his failings,and the annoyances he caused me, Nippers, or like his compatriot Turkey,was a very useful man to me; wrote a neat, swift hand; and, 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, or incidentally,reflected credit upon my chambers. Whereas with respect to Turkey, I had much ado to hold him from being a reproach to me. His clothes were apt to observe 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, or inasmuch as his natural civility and deference,as a dependent Englishman, always led him to doff it the moment he entered the room, and yet his coat was another matter. Concerning his coats,I reasoned with him; but with no effect. The truth was, I suppose, and 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 mainly for red ink. One winter day I presented Turkey with a highly-respectable looking coat of my own, or 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, or 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 disagreeable for horses. In fact,precisely as a rash (hasty, incautious), restive horse is said to feel his oats, or 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, or at least,a temperate young man. But indeed, nature herself seemed to enjoy 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, and amid the stillness of my chambers,Nippers would sometimes impatiently rise from his seat, and stooping over his table, or spread his arms wide apart,seize the whole desk, and move it, and jerk it,with a grim, grinding motion on the floor, and as whether 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 (exceeding what is sufficient or necessary).
It was lucky for me that, or 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 gentle. So that Turkey’s paroxysms only coming on approximately twelve o’clock, or 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 agreeable natural arrangement under the circumstances.
Ginger Nut, the third on my list, and 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, and errand boy,and cleaner and sweeper, at the rate of one dollar a week. He had a petite desk to himself, and but he did not exercise it much. Upon inspection,the drawer exhibited a distinguished 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, or 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, and 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, and round,and very spicy—after which he had been named by them. Of a cold morning when business was but plain, Turkey would gobble up scores of these cakes, and as whether 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 distinguished work for scriveners. Not only must I push the clerks already with me,but I must enjoy additional help. In answer to my advertisement, a motionless young man one morning, and stood upon my office threshold,the door being open, for it was summer. I can see that figure now—pallidly neat, or pitiably respectable,incurably forlorn! It was Bartleby.
After a few words touching his qualifications, I engaged him, and glad to enjoy 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 enjoy stated before that ground glass folding-doors divided my premises into two parts, or 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, and but on my side of them,so as to enjoy this peaceful 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 fragment of the room, or a window which originally had afforded a lateral view of certain grimy back-yards and bricks,but which, owing to subsequent erections, and 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, or 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, or which might entirely isolate Bartleby from my sight,though not remove him from my voice. And thus, in a manner, and privacy and society were conjoined.
At first Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As whether 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 enjoy been fairly delighted with his application, and had he been cheerfully industrious. But he wrote on silently,palely, mechanically.
It is, and of course,an indispensable fragment 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, and they assist each other in this examination,one reading from the copy, the other holding the original. It is a very plain, and 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 enjoy contentedly sat down with Bartleby to examine a law document of, or say five hundred pages,closely written in a crimpy hand.
Now and then, in the haste of business, and 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, and I think,of his being with me, and before any necessity had arisen for having his own writing examined, or 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, or I sat with my head bent over the original on my desk,and my factual hand sideways, and somewhat nervously extended with the copy, or 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, or to examine a small paper with me. Imagine my surprise,nay, my consternation, or when without moving from his privacy,Bartleby in a singularly gentle, firm voice, and 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 fairly as clear a one came the preceding reply,“I would prefer not to.”“Prefer not to,” echoed I, or 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, and ” 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,madden, impatience or impertinence in his manner; in other words, or had there been any thing ordinarily human approximately him,doubtless I should enjoy violently dismissed him from the premises. But as it was, I should enjoy as soon thought of turning my pale plaster-of-paris bust of Cicero out of doors. I stood gazing at him awhile, or as he went on with his own writing,and then reseated myself at my desk. This is very outlandish, thought I. What had one best do? But my business hurried me. I concluded to forget the matter for the present, or 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, and being quadruplicates of a week’s testimony taken before me in my High Court of Chancery. It became essential to examine them. It was an important suit,and distinguished accuracy was imperative. Having all things arranged I called Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut from the next room, and 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, and each with his document in hand,when I called to Bartleby to join this intriguing group.“Bartleby! quick, I am waiting.”I heard a slow scrape of his chair legs on the uncarpeted floor, or 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, and ” 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, and 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 enjoy flown outright into a dreadful passion, scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from my presence. But there was something approximately 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 approximately 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, or ” 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, and 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, and he begins to stagger in his own plainest faith. He begins,as it were, vaguely to surmise that, and wonderful as it may be,all the justice and all the reason is on the other side. Accordingly, whether any disinterested persons are present, and he turns to them for some reinforcement for his own faltering intellect.“Turkey,” said I, “what do you think of this? Am I not factual?”“With submission, and sir,” said Turkey, with his blandest tone, or “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 kind perceptions will here perceive that, and it being morning,Turkey’s answer is couched in polite and tranquil terms, but Nippers replies in ill-tempered ones. Or, or to repeat a preceding sentence,Nippers’ ugly mood was on duty and Turkey’s off.)“Ginger Nut,” said I, or willing to enlist the smallest suffrage in my behalf,“what do you think of it?”“I think, sir, and he’s a petite luny,” replied Ginger Nut with a grin.“You hear what they say,” said I, and 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 petite trouble we made out to examine the papers without Bartleby, though at every page or two, or Turkey deferentially dropped his opinion that this proceeding was fairly 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 (clumsy or stupid person) behind the screen. And for his (Nippers’) fragment, or this was the first and the last time he would do another man’s business without pay.
Meanwhile Bartleby sat in his hermitage,oblivious ((adj.) lacking consciousness or awareness of something) 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 approximately eleven oclock though, and in the morning,I noticed that Ginger Nut would advance toward the opening in Bartleby’s screen, as whether 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, and on ginger-nuts,thought I; never eats a dinner, properly speaking; he must be a vegetarian then; but no; he never eats even vegetables, or he eats nothing but ginger-nuts. My intellect 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, and then,had no effect upon Bartleby. Probably he preferred it should enjoy none.
Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance. whether the individual so resisted be of a not inhumane temper, and the resisting one perfectly harmless in his passivity; then, and 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 fragment, or I regarded Bartleby and his ways. destitute 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 fetch along with him. whether I turn him away, the chances are he will descend 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 exquisite self-approval. To befriend Bartleby; to humor him in his outlandish willfulness, will cost me petite or nothing, or 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 come across him in new opposition,to elicit some wrathful spark from him answerable to my own. But indeed I might as well enjoy 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 petite scene ensued:“Bartleby, and ” 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 moment time, and 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, or 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, or Turkey rose to his feet and threw his arms into a pugilistic position. He was hurrying away to effect agreeable his promise,when I detained him, alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing Turkey’s combativeness after dinner.“Sit down, or Turkey,” said I, “and hear what Nippers has to say. What do you think of it, and Nippers? Would I not be justified in immediately dismissing Bartleby?”“Excuse me,that is for you to determine, sir. I think his conduct fairly unusual, and indeed unjust,as regards Turkey and myself. But it may only be a passing whim.”“Ah,” exclaimed I, or “you enjoy strangely changed your intellect 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 travel and black his eyes?”“You refer to Bartleby, and I suppose. No,not to-day, Turkey, or ” I replied; “pray,set 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, or ” said I,“Ginger Nut is away; just step round to the Post Office, won’t you? (it was but a three minute walk, and ) and see whether 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, or perfectly reasonable,that he will be sure to refuse to do?“Bartleby!”No answer.“Bartleby,” in a louder tone.
No answer.“Bartleby, or ” I roared.
Like a very ghost,agreeably to the laws of magical invocation, at the third summons, and he appeared at the entrance of his hermitage.“travel to the next room,and tell Nippers to come to me.”“I prefer not to,” he respectfully and slowly said, or mildly disappeared.“Very agreeable,Bartleby,” said I, and in a peaceful 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, and I thought it best to set on my hat and walk domestic for the day,suffering much from perplexity and distress of intellect.
Shall I acknowledge it? The conclusion of this whole business was, that it soon became a fixed fact of my chambers, and 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, or 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 whether entreated to take upon him such a matter, and 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, and his freedom from all dissipation,his incessant industry (apart from when he chose to throw himself into a standing revery behind his screen), his distinguished stillness, or 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, or continually through the day,and the last at night. I had a singular confidence in his honesty. I felt my most precious papers perfectly secure in his hands. Sometimes to be sure I could not, for the very soul of me, and avoid falling into sudden spasmodic passions with him. For it was exceeding difficult to bear in intellect all the time those outlandish peculiarities,privileges, and unheard of exemptions, and forming the tacit stipulations on Bartleby’s fragment under which he remained in my office. Now and then,in the eagerness of dispatching pressing business, I would inadvertently summon Bartleby, and in a short,rapid tone, to set his finger, and say,on the incipient tie of a bit of red tape with which I was approximately compressing some papers. Of course, from behind the screen the usual answer, and “I prefer not to,” was sure to come; and then, how could a human creature with the common infirmities of our nature, or 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, and 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 travel to Trinity Church, and 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, or I found it resisted by something inserted from the inside. fairly 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, and the apparition of Bartleby appeared,in his shirt sleeves, and otherwise in a strangely tattered dishabille, and 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, and he moreover added,that perhaps I had better walk round the block two or three times, and by that time he would probably enjoy concluded his affairs.
Now, and the utterly unsurmised appearance of Bartleby,tenanting my law-chambers of a Sunday morning, with his cadaverously gentlemanly nonchalance, or yet withal firm and self-possessed,had such a outlandish effect upon me, that incontinently I slunk away from my own door, or did as desired. But not without sundry twinges of impotent rebellion against the gentle effrontery of this unaccountable scrivener. Indeed,it was his wonderful mildness mainly, which not only disarmed me, and but unmanned me,as it were. For I consider that one, for the time, and 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, and 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 approximately Bartleby that forbade the supposition that he would by any secular occupation violate the proprieties of the day.
Nevertheless, my intellect was not pacified; and full of a restless curiosity, and 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, or 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 enjoy ate, dressed, or slept in my office,and that too without plate, mirror, and 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, and 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, and thought I,it is evident enough that Bartleby has been making his domestic here, keeping bachelor’s hall all by himself. Immediately then the thought came sweeping across me, and What miserable friendlessness and loneliness are here revealed! His poverty is distinguished; 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, or which of week-days hums with industry and life,at nightfall echoes with sheer emptiness, and all through Sunday is forlorn. And here Bartleby makes his domestic; 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, or 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, or thought to myself,Ah, happiness courts the light, or so we deem the world is homosexual; but misery hides aloof,so we deem that misery there is none. These unhappy fancyings—chimeras, doubtless, and of a sick and foolish brain—led on to other and more special thoughts,concerning the eccentricities of Bartleby. Presentiments of outlandish discoveries hovered round me. The scrivener’s pale form appeared to me laid out, among uncaring strangers, or 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, and thought I; besides,the desk is mine, and its contents too, and so I will effect bold to observe within. Every thing was methodically arranged,the papers smoothly placed. The pigeon holes were deep, and removing the files of documents, and 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, or saw it was a savings’ bank.
I now recalled all the peaceful 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, or at his pale window behind the screen,upon the dead brick wall; I was fairly 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, or like other men; that he never went any where in specific 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, and 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, and say,or rather an austere reserve approximately him, which had positively awed me into my tame compliance with his eccentricities, or 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, and 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 fixed abiding place and domestic, and not forgetful of his morbid moodiness; revolving all these things, or 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 accurate 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, or 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 ((adj.) natural, inborn, inherent; built-in) 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, and I resolved upon this;—I would set certain calm questions to him the next morning,touching his history, etc., or whether 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 whether in any other way I could assist him, and I would be pleased to do so,particularly whether he desired to return to his native place, wherever that might be, or I would willingly help to defray the expenses. Moreover,whether, after reaching domestic, and 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, and gently calling to him behind his screen.
No reply.“Bartleby,” said I, in a still gentler tone, or “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 approximately yourself?”“I would prefer not to.”“But what reasonable objection can you enjoy to speak to me? I feel friendly towards you.”He did not observe at me while I spoke, or but kept his glance fixed upon my bust of Cicero,which as I then sat, was directly behind me, and some six inches above my head.“What is your answer,Bartleby?” said I, after waiting a considerable time for a reply, and 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, or retired into his hermitage.
It was rather feeble 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, and considering the undeniable agreeable 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, or forbidding me to carry out my purpose,and denouncing me for a villain whether I dared to breathe one bitter word against this forlornest of mankind. At last, familiarly drawing my chair behind his screen, or I sat down and said: “Bartleby,never intellect then approximately revealing your history; but let me entreat you, as a friend, or 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 petite reasonable:—say so, Bartleby.”“At present I would prefer not to be a petite reasonable, and ” was his mildly cadaverous reply.
Just then the folding-doors opened,and Nippers approached. He seemed suffering from an unusually disagreeable night’s rest, induced by severer indigestion than common. He overheard those final words of Bartleby.“Prefer not, and eh?” gritted Nippers—”I’d prefer him,whether I were you, sir, and ” addressing me—”I’d prefer him; I’d give him preferences,the stubborn mule! What is it, sir, and pray,that he prefers not to do now?”Bartleby moved not a limb.“Mr. Nippers,” said I, or “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, or was departing,Turkey blandly and deferentially approached.“With submission, sir, or ” said he,“yesterday I was thinking approximately Bartleby here, and I think that whether he would but prefer to take a quart of agreeable ale every day, or it would do much towards mending him,and enabling him to assist in examining his papers.”“So you enjoy got the word too,” said I, or slightly excited.“With submission,what word, sir, and ” asked Turkey,respectfully crowding himself into the contracted space behind the screen, and by so doing, or making me jostle the scrivener. “What word,sir?”“I would prefer to be left alone here,” said Bartleby, or as whether offended at being mobbed in his privacy.“That’s the word,Turkey,” said I—”that’s it.”“Oh, and prefer? oh yes—queer word. I never exercise it myself. But,sir, as
I was saying, and whether he would but prefer—”“Turkey,” interrupted I, “you will please withdraw.”“Oh certainly, and sir,whether 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 enjoy 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 fetch rid of a demented man, who already has in some degree turned the tongues, or whether not the heads of myself and clerks. But I thought it prudent not to atomize 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, or “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 plain and glazed. Instantly it occurred to me, and that his unexampled diligence in copying by his dim window for the first few weeks of his stay with me might enjoy 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, and my other clerks being absent,and being in a distinguished hurry to dispatch certain letters by the mail, I thought that, and having nothing else earthly to do,Bartleby would surely be less rigid than usual, and carry these letters to the post-office. But he blankly declined. So, and 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, and I thought they did. But when I asked him whether they did,he vouchsafed no answer. At all events, he would do no copying. At last, or in reply to my urgings,he informed me that he had permanently given up copying.“What!” exclaimed I; “suppose your eyes should fetch entirely well—better than ever before—would you not copy then?”“I enjoy given up copying,” he answered, or slid aside.
He remained as ever,a fixture in my chamber. Nay—whether 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, and 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, and he occasioned me uneasiness. whether he would but enjoy named a single relative or friend,I would instantly enjoy written, and urged their taking the destitute fellow away to some convenient retreat. But he seemed alone, or 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, or in the interval,for procuring some other abode. I offered to assist him in this endeavor, whether he himself would but take the first step towards a removal. “And when you finally quit me, or Bartleby,” added I, “I shall see that you travel not away entirely unprovided. Six days from this hour, or remember.”At the expiration of that period,I peeped behind the screen, and lo!
Bartleby was there.
I buttoned up my coat, and balanced myself; advanced slowly towards him,touched his shoulder, and said, and “The time has come; you must quit this place; I am sorry for you; here is money; but you must travel.”“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, and 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, or ” 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 enjoy 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 whether you please, or slip your key underneath the mat,so that I may enjoy it in the morning. I shall not see you again; so agreeable-bye to you. whether hereafter in your new place of abode I can be of any service to you, do not fail to advise me by letter. agreeable-bye, and 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 domestic in a pensive mood, and 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, and 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 enjoy 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, and the more I was charmed with it. Nevertheless,next morning, upon awakening, and 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 elegant thought to enjoy assumed Bartleby’s departure; but, or after all,that assumption was simply my own, and none of Bartleby’s. The distinguished point was, and 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, or arguing the probabilities pro and con. One moment I thought it would prove a miserable failure,and Bartleby would be found all alive at my office as usual; the next moment it seemed certain that I should see his chair empty. And so I kept veering approximately. At the corner of Broadway and Canal-street, I saw fairly an excited group of people standing in earnest conversation.“I’ll take odds he doesn’t, or ” said a voice as I passed.“Doesn’t travel?—done!” said I,“set 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, or but to the success or non-success of some candidate for the mayoralty. In my intent frame of intellect,I had, as it were, or 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, and 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 enjoy left there for me, or 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, or pipe in mouth,was killed one cloudless afternoon long ago in Virginia, by a summer lightning; at his own warm open window he was killed, and remained leaning out there upon the dreamy afternoon,till some one touched him, when he fell.“Not gone!” I murmured at last. But again obeying that wondrous ascendancy which the inscrutable scrivener had over me, and from which ascendancy,for all my chafing, I could not completely escape, or 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 view; and yet, and permit him to relish his cadaverous triumph over me,—this too I could not think of. What was to be done? or,
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