Bartelby the Scrivener E-book

                              1853
                            BARTLEBY

                       by Herman Melville









Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)



                               Bartleby


  I AM a rather elderly man. The nature of my avocations for the last 
thirty years has brought me into more than ordinary contact with what 
would seem an interesting and somewhat singular set of men, of whom, as 
yet, nothing that I know of has ever been written- I mean the law-
copyists, or scriveners. I have known very many of them, professionally 
and privately, and, if I pleased, could relate divers histories at which 
good-natured gentlemen might smile and sentimental souls might weep. But 
I waive the biographies of all other scriveners for a few passages in 
the life of Bartleby, who was a scrivener, the strangest I ever saw or 
heard of. While of other law-copyists I might write the complete life, 
of Bartleby nothing of that sort can be done. I believe that no 
materials exist for a full and satisfactory biography of this man. It is 
an irreparable loss to literature. Bartleby was one of those beings of 
whom nothing is ascertainable except from the original sources, and, in 
his case, those are very small. What my own astonished eyes saw of 
Bartleby, that is all I know of him, except, indeed, one vague 
report, which will appear in the sequel.

  Ere introducing the scrivener as he first appeared to me, it is fit I 
make some mention of myself, my employees, my business, my chambers and 
general surroundings, because some such description is indispensable to 
an adequate understanding of the chief character about to be presented. 
Imprimis: I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled 
with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best. 
Hence, though I belong to a profession proverbially energetic and 
nervous even to turbulence at times, yet nothing of that sort have I 
ever suffered to invade my peace. I am one of those unambitious lawyers 
who never addresses a jury or in any way draws down public applause, 
but, in the cool tranquility of a snug retreat, do a snug business among 
rich men's bonds, and mortgages, and title deeds. All who know me 
consider me an eminently safe man. The late John Jacob Astor, a 
personage little given to poetic enthusiasm, had no hesitation in 
pronouncing my first grand point to be prudence, my next, method. I do 
not speak it in vanity, but simply record the fact that I was not 
unemployed in my profession by the late John Jacob Astor, a name which, 
I admit, I love to repeat, for it hath a rounded and orbicular sound to 
it, and rings like unto bullion. I will freely add that I was not 
insensible to the late John Jacob Astor's good opinion.

  Some time prior to the period at which this little history begins my 
avocations had been largely increased. The good old office, now extinct 
in the State of New York, of a Master in Chancery, had been conferred 
upon me. It was not a very arduous office, but very pleasantly 
remunerative. I seldom lose my temper, much more seldom indulge in 
dangerous indignation at wrongs and outrages, but I must be permitted to 
be rash here and declare that I consider the sudden and violent 
abrogation of the office of Master in Chancery, by the new Constitution, 
as a- premature act, inasmuch as I had counted upon a life lease of the 
profits, whereas I only received those of a few short years. But this is 
by the way.

  My chambers were upstairs at No. __ Wall Street. At one end they 
looked upon the white wall of the interior of a spacious skylight shaft, 
penetrating the building from top to bottom.

  This view might have been considered rather tame than otherwise, 
deficient in what landscape painters call "life." But, if so, the view 
from the other end of my chambers offered at least a contrast, if 
nothing more. In that direction, my windows commanded an unobstructed 
view of a lofty brick wall, black by age and everlasting shade, which 
wall required no spyglass to bring out its lurking beauties, but, for 
the benefit of all nearsighted spectators, was pushed up to within ten 
feet of my windowpanes. Owing to the great height of the surrounding 
buildings, and my chambers' being on the second floor, the interval 
between this wall and mine not a little resembled a huge square cistern.

  At the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby, I had two persons 
as copyists in my employment, and a promising lad as an office boy. 
First, Turkey; second, Nippers; third, Ginger Nut. These may seem names 
the like of which are not usually found in the Directory. In truth, they 
were nicknames, mutually conferred upon each other by my three clerks, 
and were deemed expressive of their respective persons or characters. 
Turkey was a short, pursy Englishman, of about my own age- that is, 
somewhere not far from sixty. In the morning, one might say, his face 
was of a fine florid hue, but after twelve o'clock, meridian- his dinner 
hour- it blazed like a grate full of Christmas coals; and continued 
blazing- but, as it were, with a gradual wane- till six o'clock, P.M., 
or thereabouts; after which I saw no more of the proprietor of the face, 
which, gaining its meridian with the sun, seemed to set with it, to 
rise, culminate, and decline the following day, with the like regularity 
and undiminished glory. There are many singular coincidences I have 
known in the course of my life, not the least among which was the fact, 
that, exactly when Turkey displayed his fullest beams from his red and 
radiant countenance, just then, too, at that critical moment, began the 
daily period when I considered his business capacities as seriously 
disturbed for the remainder of the twenty-four hours. Not that he was 
absolutely idle or averse to business then; far from it. The difficulty 
was, he was apt to be altogether too energetic. There was a strange, 
inflamed, flurried, flighty recklessness of activity about him. He would 
be incautious in dipping his pen into his inkstand. All his blots upon 
my documents were dropped there after twelve o'clock, meridian. Indeed, 
not only would he be reckless and sadly given to making blots in the 
afternoon, but some days he went further and was rather noisy. At such 
times, too, his face flamed with augmented blazonry, as if cannel coal 
had been heaped on anthracite. He made an unpleasant racket with his 
chair; spilled his sandbox; in mending his pens, impatiently split them 
all to pieces and threw them on the floor in a sudden passion; stood up 
and leaned over his table, boxing his papers about in a most indecorous 
manner, very sad to behold in an elderly man like him. Nevertheless, as 
he was in many ways a most valuable person to me, and all the time 
before twelve o'clock, meridian, was the quickest, steadiest creature, 
too, accomplishing a great deal of work in a style not easily to be 
matched- for these reasons I was willing to overlook his eccentricities, 
though indeed, occasionally, I remonstrated with him. I did this very 
gently, however, because, though the civilest, nay, the blandest and 
most reverential of men in the morning, yet, in the afternoon he was 
disposed, upon provocation, to be slightly rash with his tongue- in 
fact, insolent. Now, valuing his morning services as I did, and resolved 
not to lose them- yet, at the same time, made uncomfortable by his 
inflamed ways after twelve o'clock- and being a man of peace, unwilling 
by my admonitions to call forth unseemly retorts from him, I took upon 
me one Saturday noon (he was always worse on Saturdays) to hint to him, 
very kindly, that perhaps, now that he was growing old, it might be well 
to abridge his labors; in short, he need not come to my chambers after 
twelve o'clock, but, dinner over, had best go home to his lodgings and 
rest himself till 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 anything, it was to be rid of a 
scrivener's table altogether. Among the manifestations of his diseased 
ambition was a fondness he had for receiving visits from certain 
ambiguous-looking fellows in seedy coats, whom he called his clients. 
Indeed, I was aware that not only was he, at times, considerable of a 
ward politician, but he occasionally did a little business at the 
Justices' courts, and was not unknown on the steps of the Tombs. I have 
good reason to believe, however, that one individual who called upon him 
at my chambers, and who, with a grand air, he insisted was his client, 
was no other than a dun, and the alleged title deed, a bill. But, with 
all his failings, and the annoyances he caused me, Nippers, like his 
compatriot Turkey, was a very useful man to me; wrote a neat, swift 
hand; and, when he chose, was not deficient in a gentlemanly sort of 
deportment. Added to this, he always dressed in a gentlemanly sort of 
way, and so, incidentally, reflected credit upon my chambers. Whereas, 
with respect to Turkey, I had much ado to keep him from being a reproach 
to me. His clothes were apt to look oily, and smell of eating houses. He 
wore his pantaloons very loose and baggy in summer. His coats were 
execrable, his hat not to be handled. But while the hat was a thing of 
indifference to me, inasmuch as his natural civility and deference, as a 
dependent Englishman, always led him to doff it the moment he entered 
the room, yet his coat was another matter. Concerning his coats, I 
reasoned with him, but with no effect. The truth was, I suppose, that a 
man with so small an income could not afford to sport such a lustrous 
face and a lustrous coat at one and the same time. As Nippers once 
observed, Turkey's money went chiefly for red ink. One winter day, I 
presented Turkey with a highly respectable-looking coat of my own- a 
padded gray coat of a most comfortable warmth, and which buttoned 
straight up from the knee to the neck. I thought Turkey would appreciate 
the favor and abate his rashness and obstreperousness of afternoons. But 
no; I verily believe that buttoning himself up in so downy and 
blanketlike 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, 
brandylike disposition that all subsequent potations were needless. When 
I consider how, amid the stillness of my chambers, Nippers would 
sometimes impatiently rise from his seat, and, stooping over his table, 
spread his arms wide apart, seize the whole desk, and move it, and jerk 
it, with a grim, grinding motion on the floor, as if the table were a 
perverse voluntary agent, intent on thwarting and vexing him, I plainly 
perceive that, for Nippers, brandy-and-water were altogether 
superfluous.

  It was fortunate for me that, owing to its peculiar cause- 
indigestion- the irritability and consequent nervousness of Nippers were 
mainly observable in the morning, while in the afternoon he was 
comparatively mild. So that, Turkey's paroxysms only coming on about 
twelve o'clock, I never had to do with their eccentricities at one time. 
Their fits relieved each other, like guards. When Nippers's was on, 
Turkey's was off; and vice versa. This was a good natural arrangement, 
under the circumstances.

  Ginger Nut, the third on my list, was a lad some twelve years old. His 
father was a carman, ambitious of seeing his son on the bench instead of 
a cart before he died. So he sent him to my office, as student at law, 
errand boy, cleaner and sweeper, at the rate of one dollar a week. He 
had a little desk to himself, but he did not use it much. Upon 
inspection, the drawer exhibited a great array of the shells of various 
sorts of nuts. Indeed, to this quick-witted youth, the whole noble 
science of the law was contained in a nutshell. Not the least among the 
employments of Ginger Nut, as well as one which he discharged with the 
most alacrity, was his duty as cake and apple purveyor for Turkey and 
Nippers. Copying law papers being proverbially a dry, husky sort of 
business, my two scriveners were fain to moisten their mouths very often 
with Spitzenbergs, to be had at the numerous stalls nigh the Custom 
House and Post Office. Also, they sent Ginger Nut very frequently for 
that peculiar cake- small, flat, round, and very spicy- after which he 
had been named by them. Of a cold morning, when business was but dull, 
Turkey would gobble up scores of these cakes, as if they were mere 
wafers- indeed, they sell them at the rate of six or eight for a penny- 
the scrape of his pen blending with the crunching of the crisp particles 
in his mouth. Of all the fiery afternoon blunders and flurried 
rashnesses of Turkey was his once moistening a ginger cake between his 
lips and clapping it on to a mortgage for a seal. I came within an ace 
of dismissing him then. But he mollified me by making an Oriental bow, 
and saying:

  "With submission, sir, it was generous of me to find you in stationery 
on my own account."

  Now my original business- that of a conveyancer and title hunter, and 
drawer-up of recondite documents of all sorts- was considerably 
increased by receiving the Master's office. There was now great work for 
scriveners. Not only must I push the clerks already with me, but I must 
have additional help.

  In answer to my advertisement, a motionless young man one morning 
stood upon my office threshold, the door being open, for it was summer. 
I can see that figure now- pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, 
incurably forlorn! It was Bartleby.

  After a few words touching his qualifications, I engaged him, glad to 
have among my corps of copyists a man of so singularly sedate an aspect, 
which I thought might operate beneficially upon the flighty temper of 
Turkey and the fiery one of Nippers.

  I should have stated before that ground-glass folding doors divided my 
premises into two parts, one of which was occupied by my scriveners, the 
other by myself. According to my humor, I threw open these doors or 
closed them. I resolved to assign Bartleby a corner by the folding 
doors, but on my side of them, so as to have this quiet man within easy 
call, in case any trifling thing was to be done. I placed his desk close 
up to a small side window in that part of the room, a window which 
originally had afforded a lateral view of certain grimy 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 sunlight and by candlelight. 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 
eyes 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 anything ordinarily human about him, 
doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises. But 
as it was I should have as soon thought of turning my pale plaster-of-
Paris bust of Cicero out of doors. I stood gazing at him awhile, as he 
went on with his own writing, and then reseated myself at my desk. This 
is very strange, thought I. What had one best do? But my business 
hurried me. I concluded to forget the matter for the present, reserving 
it for my future leisure. So calling Nippers from the other room, the 
paper was speedily examined.

  A few days after this, Bartleby concluded four lengthy documents, 
being quadruplicates of a week's testimony taken before me in my High 
Court of Chancery. It became necessary to examine them. It was an 
important suit, and great accuracy was imperative. Having all things 
arranged, I called Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut, from the next room, 
meaning to place the four copies in the hands of my four clerks, while I 
should read from the original. Accordingly, Turkey, Nippers, and Ginger 
Nut had taken their seats in a row, each with his document in his hand, 
when I called to Bartleby to join this interesting group.

  "Bartleby! quick, I am waiting."

  I heard a slow scrape of his chair legs on the uncarpeted floor, and 
soon he appeared standing at the entrance of his hermitage.

  "What is wanted?" said he, mildly.

  "The copies, the copies," said I, hurriedly. "We are going to examine 
them. There"- and I held towards him the fourth quadruplicate.

  "I would prefer not to," he said, and gently disappeared behind the 
screen.

  For a few moments I was turned into a pillar of salt, standing at the 
head of my seated column of clerks. Recovering myself, I advanced 
towards the screen and demanded the reason for such extraordinary 
conduct.

  "Why do you refuse?"

  "I would prefer not to."

  With any other man I should have flown outright into a dreadful 
passion, scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from my 
presence. But there was something about Bartleby that not only strangely 
disarmed me, but, in a wonderful manner, touched and disconcerted me. I 
began to reason with him.

  "These are your own copies we are about to examine. It is labor saving 
to you, because one examination will answer for your four papers. It is 
common usage. Every copyist is bound to help examine his copy. Is it not 
so? Will you not speak? Answer!"

  "I prefer not to," he replied in a flutelike tone. It seemed to me 
that, while I had been addressing him, he carefully revolved every 
statement that I made; fully comprehended the meaning; could not gainsay 
the irresistible conclusion; but, at the same time, some paramount 
consideration prevailed with him to reply as he did.

  "You are decided, then, not to comply with my request- a request made 
according to common usage and common sense?"

  He briefly gave me to understand that on that point my judgment was 
sound. Yes: his decision was irreversible.

  It is seldom the case that, when a man is browbeaten in some 
unprecedented and violently unreasonable way, he begins to stagger in 
his own plainest faith. He begins as it were, vaguely to surmise that, 
wonderful as it may be, all the justice and all the reason is on the 
other side. Accordingly, if any disinterested persons are present, he 
turns to them for some reinforcement for his own faltering mind.

  "Turkey," said I, "what do you think of this? Am I not right?"

  "With submission, sir," said Turkey, in his blandest tone, "I think 
that you are."

  "Nippers," said I, "what do you think of it?"

  "I think I should kick him out of the office."

  (The reader of nice perceptions, will here perceive that, it being 
morning, Turkey's answer is couched in polite and tranquil terms, but 
Nippers replies in ill-tempered ones. Or, to repeat a previous sentence, 
Nippers's ugly mood was on duty, and Turkey's off.)

  "Ginger Nut," said I, willing to enlist the smallest suffrage in my 
behalf, "what do you think of it?"

  "I think, sir, he's a little luny," replied Ginger Nut, with a 
grin.

  "You hear what they say," said I, turning towards the screen, "come 
forth and do your duty."

  But he vouchsafed no reply. I pondered a moment in sore perplexity. 
But once more business hurried me. I determined again to postpone the 
consideration of this dilemma to my future leisure. With a little 
trouble we made out to examine the papers without Bartleby, though at 
every page or two Turkey deferentially dropped his opinion that this 
proceeding was quite out of the common; while Nippers, twitching in his 
chair with a dyspeptic nervousness, ground out between his set teeth 
occasional hissing maledictions against the stubborn oaf behind the 
screen. And for his (Nippers's) part, this was the first and the last 
time he would do another man's business without pay.

  Meanwhile Bartleby sat in his hermitage, oblivious to everything but 
his own peculiar business there.

  Some days passed, the scrivener being employed upon another lengthy 
work. His late remarkable conduct led me to regard his ways narrowly. I 
observed that he never went to dinner; indeed, that he never went 
anywhere. As yet I had never, of my personal knowledge, known him to be 
outside of my office. He was a perpetual sentry in the corner. At about 
eleven o'clock, though, in the morning, I noticed that Ginger Nut would 
advance towards 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 gingernuts, which he delivered in the hermitage, receiving two of the 
cakes for his trouble.

  He lives, then, on gingernuts, 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 gingernuts. My mind then ran on in 
reveries concerning the probable effects upon the human constitution of 
living entirely on gingernuts. Gingernuts are so called because they 
contain ginger as one of their peculiar constituents, and the final 
flavoring one. Now, what was ginger? A hot, spicy thing. Was Bartleby 
hot and spicy? Not at all. Ginger, then, had no effect upon Bartleby. 
Probably he preferred it should have none.

  Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance. If 
the individual so resisted be of a not inhumane temper, and the 
resisting one perfectly harmless in his passivity, then, in the better 
moods of the former, he will endeavor charitably to construe to his 
imagination what proves impossible to be solved by his judgment. Even 
so, for the most part, I regarded Bartleby and his ways. Poor fellow! 
thought I, he means no mischief; it is plain he intends no insolence; 
his aspect sufficiently evinces that his eccentricities are involuntary. 
He is useful to me. I can get along with him. If I turn him away, the 
chances are he will fall in with some less indulgent employer, and then 
he will be rudely treated, and perhaps driven forth miserably to starve. 
Yes. Here I can cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval. To befriend 
Bartleby, to humor him in his strange willfulness, will cost me little 
or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a sweet 
morsel for my conscience. But this mood was not invariable with me. The 
passiveness of Bartleby sometimes irritated me. I felt strangely goaded 
on to encounter him in new opposition- to elicit some angry spark from 
him answerable to my own. But, indeed, I might as well have essayed to 
strike fire with my knuckles against a bit of Windsor soap. But one 
afternoon the evil impulse in me mastered me, and the following little 
scene ensued:

  "Bartleby," said I, "when those papers are all copied, I will compare 
them with you."

  "I would prefer not to."

  "How? Surely you do not mean to persist in that mulish vagary?"

  No answer.

  I threw open the folding doors near by, and, turning upon Turkey and 
Nippers, exclaimed:

  "Bartleby a second time says he won't examine his papers. What do you 
think of it, Turkey?"

  It was afternoon, be it remembered. Turkey sat glowing like a brass 
boiler, his bald head steaming, his hands reeling among his blotted 
papers.

  "Think of it?" roared Turkey. "I think I'll just step behind his 
screen and black his eyes for him!"

  So saying, Turkey rose to his feet and threw his arms into a 
pugilistic position. He was hurrying away to make good his promise when 
I detained him, alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing Turkey's 
combativeness after dinner.

  "Sit down, Turkey," said I, "and hear what Nippers has to say. What do 
you think of it, Nippers? Would I not be justified in immediately 
dismissing Bartleby?"

  "Excuse me, that is for you to decide, sir. I think his conduct quite 
unusual, and indeed, unjust, as regards Turkey and myself. But it may 
only be a passing whim."

  "Ah," exclaimed I, "you have strangely changed your mind, then- you 
speak very gently of him now."

  "All beer," cried Turkey; "gentleness is effects of beer- Nippers and 
I dined together today. You see how gentle I am, sir. Shall I go and 
black his eyes?"

  "You refer to Bartleby, I suppose. No, not today, Turkey," I replied; 
"pray, put up your fists."

  I closed the doors and again advanced towards Bartleby. I felt 
additional incentives tempting me to my fate. I burned to be rebelled 
against again. I remembered that Bartleby never left the office.

  "Bartleby," said I, "Ginger Nut is away; just step around to the Post 
Office, won't you? (it was but a three minutes' walk), and see if there 
is anything for me."

  "I would prefer not to."

  "You will not?"

  "I prefer not."

  I staggered to my desk and sat there in a deep study. My blind 
inveteracy returned. Was there any other thing in which I could procure 
myself to be ignominiously repulsed by this lean, penniless wight?- my 
hired clerk? What added thing is there, perfectly reasonable, that he 
will be sure to refuse to do?

  "Bartleby!"

  No answer.

  "Bartleby," in a louder tone.

  No answer.

  "Bartleby," I roared.

  Like a very ghost, agreeably to the laws of magical invocation, at the 
third summons he appeared at the entrance of his hermitage.

  "Go to the next room, and tell Nippers to come to me."

  "I prefer not to," he respectfully and slowly said, and mildly 
disappeared.

  "Very good, Bartleby," said I, in a quiet sort of serenely severe 
self-possessed tone, intimating the unalterable purpose of some terrible 
retribution very close at hand. At the moment I half intended something 
of the kind. But upon the whole, as it was drawing towards my dinner 
hour, I thought it best to put on my hat and walk home for the day, 
suffering much from perplexity and distress of mind.

  Shall I acknowledge it? The conclusion of this whole business was that 
it soon became a fixed fact of my chambers, that a pale young scrivener 
by the name of Bartleby had a desk there; that he copied for me at the 
usual rate of four cents a folio (one hundred words); but he was 
permanently exempt from examining the work done by him, that duty being 
transferred to Turkey and Nippers, out of compliment, doubtless, to 
their superior acuteness; moreover, said Bartleby was never, on any 
account, to be dispatched on the most trivial errand of any sort; and 
that even if entreated to take upon him such a matter, it was generally 
understood that he would "prefer not to"- in other words, that he would 
refuse point-blank.

  As days passed on, I became considerably reconciled to Bartleby. His 
steadiness, his freedom from all dissipation, his incessant industry 
(except when he chose to throw himself into a standing reverie behind 
his screen), his great stillness, his unalterableness of demeanor under 
all circumstances, made him a valuable acquisition. One prime thing was 
this- he was always there- first in the morning, continually through 
the day, and the last at night. I had a singular confidence in his 
honesty. I felt my most precious papers perfectly safe in his hands. 
Sometimes, to be sure, I could not, for the very soul of me, avoid 
falling into sudden spasmodic passions with him. For it was exceeding 
difficult to bear in mind all the time those strange peculiarities, 
privileges, and unheard-of exemptions, forming the tacit stipulations on 
Bartleby's part under which he remained in my office. Now and then, in 
the eagerness of dispatching pressing business, I would inadvertently 
summon Bartleby, in a short, rapid tone, to put his finger, say, on the 
incipient tie of a bit of red tape with which I was about compressing 
some papers. Of course, from behind the screen the usual answer, "I 
prefer not to," was sure to come; and then, how could a human creature, 
with the common infirmities of our nature, refrain from bitterly 
exclaiming upon such perverseness- such unreasonableness. However, every 
added repulse of this sort which I received only tended to lessen the 
probability of my repeating the inadvertence.

  Here it must be said that, according to the custom of most legal 
gentlemen occupying chambers in densely populated law buildings, there 
were several keys to my door. One was kept by a woman residing in the 
attic, which person weekly scrubbed and daily swept and dusted my 
apartments. Another was kept by Turkey for convenience' sake. The third 
I sometimes carried in my own pocket. The fourth I knew not who had.

  Now, one Sunday morning I happened to go to Trinity Church, to hear a 
celebrated preacher, and finding myself rather early on the ground I 
thought I would walk round to my chambers for a while. Luckily I had my 
key with me, but upon applying it to the lock, I found it resisted by 
something inserted from the inside. Quite surprised, I called out, when 
to my consternation a key was turned from within, and, thrusting his 
lean visage at me, and holding the door ajar, the apparition of Bartleby 
appeared, in his shirt sleeves, and otherwise in a strangely tattered 
deshabille, saying quietly that he was sorry, but be 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 around 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 sort of unmanned 
when he tranquilly permits his hired clerk to dictate to him and order 
him away from his own premises. Furthermore, I was full of uneasiness as 
to what Bartleby could possibly be doing in my office in his shirt 
sleeves, and in an otherwise dismantled condition, of a Sunday morning. 
Was anything amiss going on? Nay, that was out of the question. It was 
not to be thought of for a moment that Bartleby was an immoral person. 
But what could he be doing there?- copying? Nay again, whatever might be 
his eccentricities, Bartleby was an eminently decorous person. He would 
be the last man to sit down to his desk in any state approaching to 
nudity. Besides, it was Sunday; and there was something about Bartleby 
that forbade the supposition that he would by any secular occupation 
violate the proprieties of the day.

  Nevertheless, my mind was not pacified, and, full of a restless 
curiosity, at last I returned to the door. Without hindrance I inserted 
my key, opened it, and entered. Bartleby was not to be seen. I looked 
round anxiously, peeped behind his screen, but it was very plain that he 
was gone. Upon more closely examining the place, I surmised that for an 
indefinite period Bartleby must have ate, dressed, and slept in my 
office, and that, too, without plate, mirror, or bed. The cushioned seat 
of a rickety old sofa in one corner bore that 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 gingernuts 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 
friendliness 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 weekdays 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, swanlike sailing down the Mississippi 
of Broadway; and I contrasted them with the pallid copyist, and thought 
to myself, Ah, happiness courts the light, so we deem the world is gay, 
but misery hides aloof, so we deem that misery there is none. These sad 
fancyings- chimeras, doubtless, of a sick and silly brain- led on to 
other and more special thoughts, concerning the eccentricities of 
Bartleby. Presentiments of strange discoveries hovered round me. The 
scrivener's pale form appeared to me laid out, among uncaring strangers 
in its shivering winding sheet.

  Suddenly I was attracted by Bartleby's closed desk, the key in open 
sight left in the lock.

  I mean no mischief, seek the gratification of no heartless curiosity, 
thought I; besides, the desk is mine, and its contents, too, so I will 
make bold to look within. Everything was methodically arranged, the 
papers smoothly placed. The pigeonholes were deep, and, removing the 
files of documents, I groped into their recesses. Presently I felt 
something there, and dragged it out. It was an old bandanna 
handkerchief, heavy and knotted. I opened it, and saw it was a savings 
bank.

  I now recalled all the quiet mysteries which I had noted in the man. I 
remembered that he never spoke but to answer; that, though at intervals 
he had considerable time to himself, yet I had never seen him reading- 
no, not even a newspaper; that for long periods he would stand looking 
out, at his pale window behind the screen, upon the dead brick wall; I 
was quite sure he never visited any refectory or eating house, while his 
pale face clearly indicated that he never drank beer like Turkey, or tea 
and coffee even, like other men; that he never went anywhere in 
particular that I could learn; never went out for a walk, unless, 
indeed, that was the case at present; that he had declined telling who 
he was, or whence he came, or whether he had any relatives in the world; 
that though so thin and pale, he never complained of ill health. And 
more than all I remembered a certain unconscious air of pallid- how 
shall I call it?- of pallid haughtiness, say, or rather an austere 
reserve about him, which had positively awed me into my tame compliance 
with his eccentricities, when I had feared to ask him to do the 
slightest incidental thing for me, even though I might know, from his 
long-continued motionlessness, that behind his screen he must be 
standing in one of those dead-wall reveries of his.

  Revolving all these things, and coupling them with the recently 
discovered fact that he made my office his constant abiding place and 
home, and not forgetful of his morbid moodiness- revolving all these 
things, a prudential feeling began to steal over me. My first emotions 
had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just in 
proportion as the forlorness of Bartleby grew and grew to my 
imagination, did that same melancholy merge into fear, that pity into 
repulsion. So true it is, and so terrible too, that up to a certain 
point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, 
in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err who 
would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness 
of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of 
remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not 
seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead 
to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul be rid of it. What I saw 
that morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim of innate 
and incurable disorder. I might give alms to his body, but his body did 
not pain him- it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not 
reach.

  I did not accomplish the purpose of going to Trinity Church that 
morning. Somehow, the things I had seen disqualified me for the time 
from churchgoing. I walked homeward, thinking what I would do with 
Bartleby. Finally, I resolved upon this- I would put certain calm 
questions to him the next morning, touching his history, etc., and if he 
declined to answer them openly and unreservedly (and I supposed he would 
prefer not), then to give him a twenty-dollar bill over and above 
whatever I might owe him, and tell him his services were no longer 
required; but that if in any other way I could assist him, I would be 
happy to do so, especially if he desired to return to his native place, 
wherever that might be, I would willingly help to defray the expenses. 
Moreover, if, after reaching home, he found himself at any time in want 
of aid, a letter from him would be sure of a reply.

  The next morning came.

  "Bartleby," said I, gently calling to him behind his screen.

  No reply.

  "Bartleby," said I, in a still gentler tone, "come here; I am not 
going to ask you to do anything you would prefer not to do- I simply 
wish to speak to you."

  Upon this he noiselessly slid into view.

  "Will you tell me, Bartleby, where you were born?"

  "I would prefer not to."

  "Will you tell me anything about yourself?"

  "I would prefer not to."

  "But what reasonable objection can you have to speak to me? I feel 
friendly towards you."

  He did not look at me while I spoke, but kept his glance fixed upon my 
bust of Cicero, which, as I then sat, was directly behind me, some six 
inches above my head.

  "What is your answer, Bartleby," said I, after waiting a considerable 
time for a reply, during which his countenance remained immovable, only 
there was the faintest conceivable tremor of the white attenuated mouth.

  "At present I prefer to give no answer," he said, and retired into his 
hermitage.

  It was rather weak in me I confess, but his manner, on this occasion, 
nettled me. Not only did there seem to lurk in it a certain calm 
disdain, but his perverseness seemed ungrateful, considering the 
undeniable good usage and indulgence he had received from me.

  Again I sat ruminating what I should do. Mortified as I was at his 
behavior, and resolved as I had been to dismiss him when I entered my 
office, nevertheless I strangely felt something superstitious knocking 
at my heart, and forbidding me to carry out my purpose, and denouncing 
me for a villain if I dared to breathe one bitter word against this 
forlornest of mankind. At last, familiarly drawing my chair behind his 
screen, I sat down and said: "Bartleby, never mind, then, about 
revealing your history; but let me entreat you, as a friend, to comply 
as far as may be with the usages of this office. Say now, you will help 
to examine papers tomorrow or next day: in short, say now, that in a day 
or two you will begin to be a little reasonable:- say so, Bartleby."

  "At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable," was his 
mildly cadaverous reply.

  Just then the folding doors opened and Nippers approached. He seemed 
suffering from an unusually bad night's rest, induced by severer 
indigestion than common. He overheard those final words of Bartleby.

  "Prefer not, eh?" gritted Nippers- "I'd prefer him, if I were 
you, sir," addressing me- "I'd prefer him; I'd give him preferences, 
the stubborn mule! What is it, sir, pray, that he prefers not to do 
now?"

  Bartleby moved not a limb.

  "Mr. Nippers," said I, "I'd prefer that you would withdraw for the 
present."

  Somehow, of late, I had got into the way of involuntarily using this 
word "prefer" upon all sorts of not exactly suitable occasions. And I 
trembled to think that my contact with the scrivener had already and 
seriously affected me in a mental way. And what further and deeper 
aberration might it not yet produce? This apprehension had not been 
without efficacy in determining me to summary measures.

  As Nippers, looking very sour and sulky, was departing, Turkey blandly 
and deferentially approached.

  "With submission, sir," said he, "yesterday I was thinking about 
Bartleby here, and I think that if he would but prefer to take a quart 
of good ale every day, it would do much towards mending him, and 
enabling him to assist in examining his papers."

  "So you have got the word, too," said I, slightly excited.

  "With submission, and word, sir?" asked Turkey, respectfully crowding 
himself into the contracted space behind the screen, and by doing so 
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 reverie. Upon asking him why he did not write, 
he said that he had decided upon doing no more writing.

  "Why, how now? what next?" exclaimed I, "do no more writing?"

  "No more."

  "And what is the reason?"

  "Do you not see the reason for yourself?" he indifferently replied.

  I looked steadfastly at him, and perceived that his eyes looked dull 
and glazed. Instantly it occurred to me that his unexampled diligence in 
copying by his dim window for the first few weeks of his stay with me 
might have temporarily impaired his vision.

  I was touched. I said something in condolence with him. I hinted that 
of course he did wisely in abstaining from writing for a while; and 
urged him to embrace that opportunity of taking wholesome exercise in 
the open air. This, however, he did not do. A few days after this, my 
other clerks being absent, and being in a great hurry to dispatch 
certain letters by the mail, I thought that, having nothing else earthly 
to do, Bartleby would surely be less inflexible than usual, and carry 
these letters to the Post Office. But he blankly declined. So, much to 
my inconvenience, I went myself.

  Still added days went by. Whether Bartleby's eyes improved or not, I 
could not say. To all appearance, I thought they did. But when I asked 
him if they did, he vouchsafed no answer. At all events, he would do no 
copying. At last, in reply to my urgings, he informed me that he had 
permanently given up copying.

  "What!" exclaimed I; "suppose your eyes should get entirely well- 
better than ever before- would you not copy then?"

  "I have given up copying," he answered, and slid aside.

  He remained as ever, a fixture in my chamber. Nay- if that were 
possible- he became still more of a fixture than before. What was to be 
done? He would do nothing in the office; why should he stay there? In 
plain fact, he had now become a millstone to me, not only useless as a 
necklace, but afflictive to bear. Yet I was sorry for him. I speak less 
than truth when I say that, on his own account, he occasioned me 
uneasiness. If he would but have named a single relative or friend, I 
would instantly have written and urged their taking the poor fellow away 
to some convenient retreat. But he seemed alone, absolutely alone in the 
universe. A bit of wreck in the mid-Atlantic. At length, necessities 
connected with my business tyrannized over all other considerations. 
Decently as I could, I told Bartleby that in six days' time he must 
unconditionally leave the office. I warned him to take measures, in the 
interval, for procuring some other abode. I offered to assist him in 
this endeavor, if he himself would but take the first step towards a 
removal. "And when you finally quit me, Bartleby," added I, "I shall see 
that you go not away entirely unprovided. Six days from this hour, 
remember."

  At the expiration of that period, I peeped behind the screen, and lo! 
Bartleby was there.

  I buttoned up my coat, balanced myself, advanced slowly towards him, 
touched his shoulder, and said, "The time has come; you must quit this 
place; I am sorry for you; here is money; but you must go."

  "I would prefer not," he replied, with his back still towards me.

  "You must."

  He remained silent.

  Now I had an unbounded confidence in this man's common honesty. He had 
frequently restored to me sixpences and shillings carelessly dropped 
upon the floor, for I am apt to be very reckless in such shirt-button 
affairs. The proceeding, then, which followed will not be deemed 
extraordinary.

  "Bartleby," said I, "I owe you twelve dollars on account; here are 
thirty-two; the odd twenty are yours- Will you take it?" and I handed 
the bills towards him.

  But he made no motion.

  "I will leave them here, then," putting them under a weight on the 
table. Then taking my hat and cane and going to the door, I tranquilly 
turned and added- "After you have removed your things from these 
offices, Bartleby, you will of course lock the door- since everyone is 
now gone for the day but you- and if you please, slip your key 
underneath the mat, so that I may have it in the morning. I shall not 
see you again; so good-bye to you. If, hereafter, in your new place of 
abode, I can be of any service to you, do not fail to advise me by 
letter. Good-bye, Bartleby, and fare you well."

  But he answered not a word; like the last column of some ruined 
temple, he remained standing mute and solitary in the middle of the 
otherwise deserted room.

  As I walked home in a pensive mood, my vanity got the better of my 
pity. I could not but highly plume myself on my masterly management in 
getting rid of Bartleby. Masterly I call it, and such it must appear to 
any dispassionate thinker. The beauty of my procedure seemed to consist 
in its perfect quietness. There was no vulgar bullying, no bravado of 
any sort, no choleric hectoring and striding to and fro across the 
apartment, jerking out vehement commands for Bartleby to bundle himself 
off with his beggarly traps. Nothing of the kind. Without loudly bidding 
Bartleby depart- as an inferior genius might have done- I assumed 
the ground that depart he must, and upon that assumption built all I had 
to say. The more I thought over my procedure, the more I was charmed 
with it. Nevertheless, next morning, upon awakening, I had my doubts- I 
had somehow slept off the fumes of vanity. One of the coolest and wisest 
hours a man has is just after he awakes in the morning. My procedure 
seemed as sagacious as ever- but only in theory. How it would prove in 
practice- there was the rub. It was truly a beautiful thought to have 
assumed Bartleby's departure; but, after all, that assumption was simply 
my own, and none of Bartleby's. The great point was, not whether I had 
assumed that he would quit me, but whether he would prefer so to do. He 
was more a man of preferences than assumptions.

  After breakfast, I walked downtown, arguing the probabilities pro and 
con. One moment I thought it would prove a miserable failure, and 
Bartleby would be found all alive at my office as usual; the next moment 
it seemed certain that I should find his chair empty. And so I kept 
veering about. At the corner of Broadway and Canal Street, I saw quite 
an excited group of people standing in earnest conversation.

  "I'll take odds he doesn't," said a voice as I passed.

  "Doesn't go?- done!" said I, "put up your money."

  I was instinctively putting my hand in my pocket to produce my own, 
when I remembered that this was an election day. The words I had 
overheard bore no reference to Bartleby but to the success or nonsuccess 
of some candidate for the mayoralty. In my intent frame of mind, I had, 
as it were, imagined that all Broadway shared in my excitement, and were 
debating the same question with me. I passed on, very thankful that the 
uproar of the street screened my momentary absent-mindedness.

  As I had intended, I was earlier than usual at my office door. I stood 
listening for a moment. All was still. He must be gone. I tried the 
knob. The door was locked. Yes, my procedure had worked to a charm; he 
indeed must be vanished. Yet a certain melancholy mixed with this: I was 
almost sorry for my brilliant success. I was fumbling under the door mat 
for the key, which Bartleby was to have left there for me, when 
accidentally my knee knocked against a panel, producing a summoning 
sound, and in response a voice came to me from within- "Not yet; I am 
occupied."

  It was Bartleby.

  I was thunderstruck. For an instant I stood like the man who, pipe in 
mouth, was killed one cloudless afternoon long ago in Virginia by summer 
lightning; at his own warm open window he was killed, and remained 
leaning out there upon the dreamy afternoon, till someone touched him, 
when he fell.

  "Not gone!" I murmured at last. But again obeying that wondrous 
ascendancy which the inscrutable scrivener had over me, and from which 
ascendancy, for all my chafing, I could not completely escape, I slowly 
went downstairs and out into the street, and while walking round the 
block considered what I should next do in this unheard-of perplexity. 
Turn the man out by an actual thrusting I could not; to drive him away 
by calling him hard names would not do; calling in the police was an 
unpleasant idea; and yet, permit him to enjoy his cadaverous triumph 
over me- this, too, I could not think of. What was to be done? or, if 
nothing could be done, was there anything further that I could 
assume in the matter? Yes, as before I had prospectively assumed 
that Bartleby would depart, so now I might retrospectively assume that 
departed he was. In the legitimate carrying out of this assumption I 
might enter my office in a great hurry, and, pretending not to see 
Bartleby at all, walk straight against him as if he were air. Such a 
proceeding would in a singular degree have the appearance of a home 
thrust. It was hardly possible that Bartleby could withstand such an 
application of the doctrine of assumptions. But upon second thoughts the 
success of the plan seemed rather dubious. I resolved to argue the 
matter over with him again.

  "Bartleby," said I, entering the office, with a quietly severe 
expression, "I am seriously displeased. I am pained, Bartleby. I had 
thought better of you. I had imagined you of such a gentlemanly 
organization that in any delicate dilemma a slight hint would suffice- 
in short, an assumption. But it appears I am deceived. Why," I added, 
unaffectedly starting, "you have not even touched that money yet," 
pointing to it, just where I had left it the evening previous.

  He answered nothing.

  "Will you, or will you not, quit me?" I now demanded in a sudden 
passion, advancing close to him.

  "I would prefer not to quit you," he replied, gently emphasizing 
the not.

  "What earthly right have you to stay here? Do you pay any rent? Do you 
pay my taxes? Or is this property yours?"

  He answered nothing.

  "Are you ready to go on and write now? Are your eyes recovered? Could 
you copy a small paper for me this morning? or help examine a few lines? 
or step round to the Post Office? In a word, will you do anything at all 
to give a coloring to your refusal to depart the premises?"

  He silently retired into his hermitage.

  I was now in such a state of nervous resentment that I thought it but 
prudent to check myself at present from further demonstrations. Bartleby 
and I were alone. I remembered the tragedy of the unfortunate Adams and 
the still more unfortunate Colt in the solitary office of the latter; 
and how poor Colt, being dreadfully incensed by Adams, and imprudently 
permitting himself to get wildly excited, was at unawares hurried into 
his fatal act- an act which certainly no man could possibly deplore more 
than the actor himself. Often it had occurred to me in my ponderings 
upon the subject that had that altercation taken place in the public 
street, or at a private residence, it would not have terminated as it 
did. It was the circumstance of being alone in a solitary office, 
upstairs, of a building entirely unhallowed by humanizing domestic 
associations- an uncarpeted office, doubtless, of a dusty, haggard sort 
of appearance- this it must have been which greatly helped to enhance 
the irritable desperation of the hapless Colt.

  But when this old Adam of resentment rose in me and tempted me 
concerning Bartleby, I grappled him and threw him. How? Why, simply by 
recalling the divine injunction: "A new commandment give I unto you, 
that ye love one another." Yes, this it was that saved me. Aside from 
higher considerations, charity often operates as a vastly wise and 
prudent principle- a great safeguard to its possessor. Men have 
committed murder for jealousy's sake, and anger's sake, and hatred's 
sake, and selfishness' sake, and spiritual pride's sake; but no man that 
ever I heard of ever committed a diabolical murder for sweet charity's 
sake. Mere self-interest, then, if no better motive can be enlisted, 
should, especially with high-tempered men, prompt all beings to charity 
and philanthropy. At any rate, upon the occasion in question, I strove 
to drown my exasperated feelings towards the scrivener by benevolently 
construing his conduct. Poor fellow, poor fellow! thought I, he don't 
mean anything, and besides, he has seen hard times, and ought to be 
indulged.

  I endeavored, also, immediately to occupy myself, and at the same time 
to comfort my despondency. I tried to fancy that in the course of the 
morning, at such time as might prove agreeable to him, Bartleby, of his 
own free accord would emerge from his hermitage and take up some decided 
line of march in the direction of the door. But no. Half-past twelve 
o'clock came; Turkey began to glow in the face, overturn his inkstand, 
and become generally obstreperous; Nippers abated down into quietude and 
courtesy; Ginger Nut munched his noon apple; and Bartleby remained 
standing at his window in one of his profoundest dead-wall reveries. 
Will it be credited? Ought I to acknowledge it? That afternoon I left 
the office without saying one further word to him.

  Some days now passed during which, at leisure intervals, I looked a 
little into "Edwards on the Will," and "Priestley on Necessity." Under 
the circumstances, those books induced a salutary feeling. Gradually I 
slid into the persuasion that these troubles of mine touching the 
scrivener had been all predestinated from eternity, and Bartleby was 
billeted upon me for some mysterious purpose of an all-wise Providence, 
which it was not for a mere mortal like me to fathom. Yes, Bartleby, 
stay there behind your screen, thought I; I shall persecute you no more; 
you are harmless and noiseless as any of these old chairs; in short, I 
never feel so private as when I know you are here. At last I see it, I 
feel it; I penetrate to the predestinated purpose of my life. I am 
content. Others may have loftier parts to enact, but my mission in this 
world, Bartleby, is to furnish you with office room for such period as 
you may see fit to remain.

  I believe that this wise and blessed frame of mind would have 
continued with me had it not been for the unsolicited and uncharitable 
remarks obtruded upon me by my professional friends who visited the 
rooms. But thus it often is that the constant friction of illiberal 
minds wears out at last the best resolves of the more generous. Though, 
to be sure, when I reflected upon it it was not strange that people 
entering my office should be struck by the peculiar aspect of the 
unaccountable Bartleby, and so be tempted to throw out some sinister 
observations concerning him. Sometimes an attorney having business with 
me, and calling at my office, and finding no one but the scrivener 
there, would undertake to obtain some sort of precise information from 
him touching my whereabouts; but without heeding his idle talk, Bartleby 
would remain standing immovable in the middle of the room. So, after 
contemplating him in that position for a time, the attorney would depart 
no wiser than he came.

  Also, when a reference was going on, and the room full of lawyers and 
witnesses, and business driving fast, some deeply-occupied legal 
gentleman present, seeing Bartleby wholly unemployed, would request him 
to run round to his (the legal gentleman's) office and fetch some papers 
for him. Thereupon Bartleby would tranquilly decline, and yet remain 
idle as before. Then the lawyer would give a great stare, and turn to 
me. And what could I say? At last I was made aware that all through the 
circle of my professional acquaintance a whisper of wonder was running 
round, having reference to the strange creature I kept at my office. 
This worried me very much. And as the idea came upon me of his possibly 
turning out a long-lived man, and keep occupying my chambers, and 
denying my authority; and perplexing my visitors; and scandalizing my 
professional reputation; and casting a general gloom over the premises; 
keeping soul and body together to the last upon his savings (for 
doubtless he spent but half a dime a day), and in the end perhaps 
outlive me, and claim possession of my office by right of his perpetual 
occupancy- as all these dark anticipations crowded upon me more and 
more, and my friends continually intruded their relentless remarks upon 
the apparition in my room, a great change was wrought in me. I resolved 
to gather all my faculties together and forever rid me of this 
intolerable incubus.

  Ere revolving any complicated project, however, adapted to this end, I 
first simply suggested to Bartleby the propriety of his permanent 
departure. In a calm and serious tone, I commended the idea to his 
careful and mature consideration. But, having taken three days to 
meditate upon it, he apprised me that his original determination 
remained the same; in short, that he still preferred to abide with me.

  What shall I do? I now said to myself, buttoning up my coat to the 
last button. What shall I do? what ought I to do? what does conscience 
say I should do with this man, or, rather, ghost. Rid myself of him, 
I must; go, he shall. But how? You will not thrust him, the poor, pale, 
passive mortal- you will not thrust such a helpless creature out of your 
door? you will not dishonor yourself by such cruelty? No, I will not, I 
cannot do that. Rather would I let him live and die here, and then mason 
up his remains in the wall. What, then, will you do? For all your 
coaxing, he will not budge. Bribes he leaves under your own paperweight 
on your table; in short, it is quite plain that he prefers to cling to 
you.

  Then something severe, something unusual, must be done. What! surely 
you will not have him collared by a constable, and commit his innocent 
pallor to the common jail? And upon what ground could you procure such a 
thing to be done?- a vagrant, is he? What! he a vagrant, a wanderer, who 
refuses to budge? It is because he will not be a vagrant, then, that 
you seek to count him as a vagrant. That is too absurd. No visible 
means of support: there I have him. Wrong again: for indubitably he 
does support himself, and that is the only unanswerable proof that 
any man can show of his possessing the means so to do. No more, then. 
Since he will not quit me, I must quit him. I will change my offices; I 
will move elsewhere, and give him then notice that if I find him on my 
new premises I will then proceed against him as a common trespasser.

  Acting accordingly, next day I thus addressed him: "I find these 
chambers too far from the City Hall; the air is unwholesome. In a word, 
I propose to remove my offices next week, and shall no longer require 
your services. I tell you this now, in order that you may seek another 
place."

  He made no reply, and nothing more was said.

  On the appointed day I engaged carts and men, proceeded to my 
chambers, and, having but little furniture, everything was removed in a 
few hours. Throughout, the scrivener remained standing behind the 
screen, which I directed to be removed the last thing. It was withdrawn; 
and, being folded up like a huge folio, left him the motionless occupant 
of a naked room. I stood in the entry watching him a moment, while 
something from within me upbraided me.

  I re-entered, with my hand in my pocket- and- and my heart in my 
mouth.

  "Good-bye, Bartleby; I am going- good-bye; and God some way bless you; 
and take that," slipping something in his hand. But it dropped upon the 
floor, and then- strange to say- I tore myself from him whom I had so 
longed to be rid of.

  Established in my new quarters, for a day or two I kept the door 
locked, and started at every footfall in the passages. When I returned 
to my rooms after any little absence, I would pause at the threshold for 
an instant and attentively listen ere applying my key. But these fears 
were needless. Bartleby never came nigh me.

  I thought all was going well, when a perturbed-looking stranger 
visited me, inquiring whether I was the person who had recently occupied 
rooms at No. __ Wall Street.

  Full of forebodings, I replied that I was.

  "Then, sir," said the stranger, who proved a lawyer, "you are 
responsible for the man you left there. He refuses to do any copying; he 
refuses to do anything; he says he prefers not to; and he refuses to 
quit the premises."

  "I am very sorry, sir," said I, with assumed tranquility, but an 
inward tremor, "but, really, the man you allude to is nothing to me- he 
is no relation or apprentice of mine, that you should hold me 
responsible for him."

  "In mercy's name, who is he?"

  "I certainly cannot inform you. I know nothing about him. Formerly I 
employed him as a copyist; but he has done nothing for me now for some 
time past."

  "I shall settle him, then- good morning, sir."

  Several days passed, and I heard nothing more; and, though I often 
felt a charitable prompting to call at the place and see poor Bartleby, 
yet a certain squeamishness, of I know not what, withheld me.

  All is over with him, by this time, thought I at last, when, through 
another week, no further intelligence reached me. But, coming to my room 
the day after, I found several persons waiting at my door in a high 
state of nervous excitement.

  "That's the man- here he comes," cried the foremost one, whom I 
recognized as the lawyer who had previously called upon me alone.

  "You must take him away, sir, at once," cried a portly person among 
them, advancing upon me, and whom I knew to be the landlord of No. __ 
Wall Street. "These gentlemen, my tenants, cannot stand it any longer; 
Mr. B__," pointing to the lawyer, "has turned him out of his room, and 
he now persists in haunting the building generally, sitting upon the 
banisters of the stairs by day, and sleeping in the entry by night. 
Everybody is concerned; clients are leaving the offices; some fears are 
entertained of a mob; something you must do, and that without delay."

  Aghast at this torrent, I fell back before it, and would fain have 
locked myself in my new quarters. In vain I persisted that Bartleby was 
nothing to me- no more than to anyone else. In vain- I was the last 
person known to have anything to do with him, and they held me to the 
terrible account. Fearful, then, of being exposed in the papers (as one 
person present obscurely threatened), I considered the matter, and at 
length said that if the lawyer would give me a confidential interview 
with the scrivener, in his (the lawyer's) own room, I would, that 
afternoon, strive my best to rid them of the nuisance they complained 
of.

  Going upstairs to my old haunt, there was Bartleby silently sitting 
upon the banister at the landing.

  "What are you doing here, Bartleby?" said I.

  "Sitting upon the banister," he mildly replied.

  I motioned him into the lawyer's room, who then left us.

  "Bartleby," said I, "are you aware that you are the cause of great 
tribulation to me, by persisting in occupying the entry after being 
dismissed from the office?"

  No answer.

  "Now one of two things must take place. Either you must do something, 
or something must be done to you. Now what sort of business would you 
like to engage in? Would you like to re-engage in copying for someone?"

  "No; I would prefer not to make any change."

  "Would you like a clerkship in a dry-goods store?"

  "There is too much confinement about that. No, I would not like a 
clerkship; but I am not particular."

  "Too much confinement," I cried; "why you keep yourself confined all 
the time!"

  "I would prefer not to take a clerkship," he rejoined, as if to settle 
that little item at once.

  "How would a bartender's business suit you? There is no trying of the 
eyesight in that."

  "I would not like it at all; though, as I said before, I am not 
particular."

  His unwonted wordiness inspirited me. I returned to the charge.

  "Well, then, would you like to travel through the country collecting 
bills for the merchants? That would improve your health."

  "No, I would prefer to be doing something else."

  "How, then, would going as a companion to Europe, to entertain some 
young gentleman with your conversation- how would that suit you?"

  "Not at all. It does not strike me that there is anything definite 
about that. I like to be stationary. But I am not particular."

  "Stationary you shall be, then," I cried, now losing all patience, 
and, for the first time in all my exasperating connection with him, 
fairly flying into a passion. "If you do not go away from these premises 
before night, I shall feel bound- indeed, I am bound- to- to- to 
quit the premises myself!" I rather absurdly concluded, knowing not with 
what possible threat to try to frighten his immobility into compliance. 
Despairing of all further efforts, I was precipitately leaving him, when 
a final thought occurred to me- one which had not been wholly unindulged 
before.

  "Bartleby," said I, in the kindest tone I could assume under such 
exciting circumstances, "will you go home with me now- not to my office, 
but my dwelling- and remain there till we can conclude upon some 
convenient arrangement for you at our leisure? Come, let us start now, 
right away."

  "No; at present I would prefer not to make any change at all."

  I answered nothing, but, effectually dodging everyone by the 
suddenness and rapidity of my flight, rushed from the building, ran up 
Wall Street towards Broadway, and, jumping into the first omnibus, was 
soon removed from pursuit. As soon as tranquillity returned, I 
distinctly perceived that I had now done all that I possibly could, both 
in respect to the demands of the landlord and his tenants, and with 
regard to my own desire and sense of duty, to benefit Bartleby, and 
shield him from rude persecution. I now strove to be entirely carefree 
and quiescent, and my conscience justified me in the attempt, though, 
indeed, it was not so successful as I could have wished. So fearful was 
I of being again hunted out by the incensed landlord and his exasperated 
tenants that, surrendering my business to Nippers for a few days, I 
drove about the upper part of the town and through the suburbs in my 
rockaway; crossed over to Jersey City and Hoboken, and paid fugitive 
visits to Manhattanville and Astoria. In fact, I almost lived in my 
rockaway for the time.

  When again I entered my office, lo, a note from the landlord lay upon 
the desk. I opened it with trembling hands. It informed me that the 
writer had sent to the police, and had Bartleby removed to the Tombs as 
a vagrant. Moreover, since I knew more about him than anyone else, he 
wished me to appear at that place and make a suitable statement of the 
facts. These tidings had a conflicting effect upon me. At first I was 
indignant, but at last almost approved. The landlord's energetic, 
summary disposition had led him to adopt a procedure which I do not 
think I would have decided upon myself; and yet, as a last resort, under 
such peculiar circumstances, it seemed the only plan.

  As I afterwards learned, the poor scrivener, when told that he must be 
conducted to the Tombs, offered not the slightest obstacle, but, in his 
pale, unmoving way, silently acquiesced.

  Some of the compassionate and curious bystanders joined the party, 
and, headed by one of the constables arm in arm with Bartleby, the 
silent procession filed its way through all the noise, and heat, and joy 
of the roaring thoroughfares at noon.

  The same day I received the note, I went to the Tombs, or, to speak 
more properly, the Halls of Justice. Seeking the right officer, I stated 
the purpose of my call, and was informed that the individual I described 
was indeed within. I then assured the functionary that Bartleby was a 
perfectly honest man, and greatly to be compassionated, however 
unaccountably eccentric. I narrated all I knew, and closed by suggesting 
the idea of letting him remain in as indulgent confinement as possible 
till something less harsh might be done- though, indeed, I hardly knew 
what. At all events, if nothing else could be decided upon, the 
almshouse must receive him. I then begged to have an interview.

  Being under no disgraceful charge, and quite serene and harmless in 
all his ways, they had permitted him freely to wander about the prison, 
and, especially, in the inclosed grass-platted yards thereof. And so I 
found him there, standing all alone in the quietest of the yards, his 
face towards a high wall, while all around, from the narrow slits of the 
jail windows, I thought I saw peering out upon him the eyes of murderers 
and thieves.

  "Bartleby!"

  "I know you," he said, without looking round- "and I want nothing to 
say to you."

  "It was not I that brought you here, Bartleby," said I, keenly pained 
at his implied suspicion. "And, to you, this should not be so vile a 
place. Nothing reproachful attaches to you by being here. And see, it is 
not so sad a place as one might think. Look, there is the sky, and here 
is the grass."

  "I know where I am," he replied, but would say nothing more, and so I 
left him.

  As I entered the corridor again, a broad meatlike man in an apron 
accosted me, and, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, said- "Is that 
your friend?"

  "Yes."

  "Does he want to starve? If he does, let him live on the prison fare, 
that's all."

  "Who are you?" asked I, not knowing what to make of such an 
unofficially speaking person in such a place.

  "I am the grubman. Such gentlemen as have friends here hire me to 
provide them with something good to eat."

  "Is this so?" said I, turning to the turnkey.

  He said it was.

  "Well, then," said I, slipping some silver into the grubman's hands 
(for so they called him), "I want you to give particular attention to my 
friend there; let him have the best dinner you can get. And you must be 
as polite to him as possible."

  "Introduce me, will you?" said the grubman, looking at me with an 
expression which seemed to say he was all impatience for an opportunity 
to give a specimen of his breeding.

  Thinking it would prove of benefit to the scrivener, I acquiesced, 
and, asking the grubman his name, went up with him to Bartleby.

  "Bartleby, this is a friend; you will find him very useful to you."

  "Your sarvant, sir, your sarvant," said the grubman, making a low 
salutation behind his apron. "Hope you find it pleasant here, sir; nice 
grounds- cool apartments- hope you'll stay with us some time- try to 
make it agreeable. What will you have for dinner today?"

  "I prefer not to dine today," said Bartleby, turning away. "It would 
disagree with me; I am unused to dinners." So saying, he slowly moved to 
the other side of the inclosure and took up a position fronting the 
dead-wall.

  "How's this?" said the grubman, addressing me with a stare of 
astonishment. "He's odd, ain't he?"

  "I think he is a little deranged," said I, sadly.

  "Deranged? deranged is it? Well, now, upon my word, I thought that 
friend of yourn was a gentleman forger; they are always pale and 
genteel-like, them forgers. I can't help pity 'em- can't help it, sir. 
Did you know Monroe Edwards?" he added, touchingly, and paused. Then, 
laying his hand piteously on my shoulder, sighed, "he died of 
consumption at Sing-Sing. So you weren't acquainted with Monroe?"

  "No, I was never socially acquainted with any forgers. But I cannot 
stop longer. Look to my friend yonder. You will not lose by it. I will 
see you again."

  Some few days after this, I again obtained admission to the Tombs, and 
went through the corridors in quest of Bartleby; but without finding 
him.

  "I saw him coming from his cell not long ago," said a turnkey, "maybe 
he's gone to loiter in the yards."

  So I went in that direction.

  "Are you looking for the silent man?" said another turnkey, passing 
me. "Yonder he lies- sleeping in the yard there. 'Tis not twenty minutes 
since I saw him lie down."

  The yard was entirely quiet. It was not accessible to the common 
prisoners. The surrounding walls, of amazing thickness, kept off all 
sounds behind them. The Egyptian character of the masonry weighed upon 
me with its gloom. But a soft imprisoned turf grew underfoot. The heart 
of the eternal pyramids, it seemed, wherein, by some strange magic, 
through the clefts, grass-seed, dropped by birds, had sprung.

  Strangely huddled at the base of the wall, his knees drawn up and 
lying on his side, his head touching the cold stones, I saw the wasted 
Bartleby. But nothing stirred. I paused, then went close up to him, 
stooped over, and saw that his dim eyes were open; otherwise he seemed 
profoundly sleeping. Something prompted me to touch him. I felt his 
hand, when a tingling shiver ran up my arm and down my spine to my feet.

  The round face of the grubman peered upon me now. "His dinner is 
ready. Won't he dine today, either? Or does he live without dining?"

  "Lives without dining," said I, and closed the eyes.

  "Eh!- He's asleep, ain't he?"

  "With kings and counselors," murmured I.

  There would seem little need for proceeding further in this history. 
Imagination will readily supply the meager recital of poor Bartleby's 
interment. But, ere parting with the reader, let me say that if this 
little narrative has sufficiently interested him to awaken curiosity as 
to who Bartleby was, and what manner of life he led prior to the present 
narrator's making his acquaintance, I can only reply that in such 
curiosity I fully share, but am wholly unable to gratify it. Yet here I 
hardly know whether I should divulge one little item of rumor which came 
to my ear a few months after the scrivener's decease. Upon what basis it 
rested, I could never ascertain, and hence how true it is I cannot now 
tell. But, inasmuch as this vague report has not been without a certain 
suggestive interest to me, however sad, it may prove the same with some 
others, and so I will briefly mention it. The report was this: that 
Bartleby had been a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Office at 
Washington, from which he had been suddenly removed by a change in the 
administration. When I think over this rumor, hardly can I express the 
emotions which seize me. Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men? 
Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness, 
can any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that of 
continually handling these dead letters, and assorting them for the 
flames? For by the cartload they are annually burned. Sometimes from out 
the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring- the finger it was meant 
for, perhaps, molders in the grave; a bank note sent in swiftest 
charity- he whom it would relieve nor eats nor hungers any more; pardon 
for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; good 
tidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities. On errands 
of life, these letters speed to death.

  Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!


                         THE END