Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street
unmanned me, as it were. For I consider that one, for the time, is a
sort of unmanned when he tranquilly permits his hired clerk to dictate
to him, and order him away from his own premises. Furthermore, I was
full of uneasiness as to what Bartleby could possibly be doing in my
office in his shirt sleeves, and in an otherwise dismantled condition
of a Sunday morning. Was any thing amiss going on? Nay, that was out of
the question. It was not to be thought of for a moment that Bartleby
was an immoral person. But what could he be doing there?—copying? Nay
again, whatever might be his eccentricities, Bartleby was an eminently
decorous person. He would be the last man to sit down to his desk in
any state approaching to nudity. Besides, it was Sunday; and there was
something about Bartleby that forbade the supposition that he would by
any secular occupation violate the proprieties of the day.
Nevertheless, my mind was not pacified; and full of a restless
curiosity, at last I returned to the door. Without hindrance I inserted
my key, opened it, and entered. Bartleby was not to be seen. I looked
round anxiously, peeped behind his screen; but it was very plain that
he was gone. Upon more closely examining the place, I surmised that for
an indefinite period Bartleby must have ate, dressed, and slept in my
office, and that too without plate, mirror, or bed. The cushioned seat
of a rickety old sofa in one corner bore the faint impress of a lean,
reclining form. Rolled away under his desk, I found a blanket; under
the empty grate, a blacking box and brush; on a chair, a tin basin,
with soap and a ragged towel; in a newspaper a few crumbs of
ginger-nuts and a morsel of cheese. Yes, thought I, it is evident
enough that Bartleby has been making his home here, keeping bachelor’s
hall all by himself. Immediately then the thought came sweeping across
me, What miserable friendlessness and loneliness are here revealed! His
poverty is great; but his solitude, how horrible! Think of it. Of a
Sunday, Wall-street is deserted as Petra; and every night of every day
it is an emptiness. This building too, which of week-days hums with
industry and life, at nightfall echoes with sheer vacancy, and all
through Sunday is forlorn. And here Bartleby makes his home; sole
spectator of a solitude which he has seen all populous—a sort of
innocent and transformed Marius brooding among the ruins of Carthage!
For the first time in my life a feeling of overpowering stinging
melancholy seized me. Before, I had never experienced aught but a
not-unpleasing sadness. The bond of a common humanity now drew me
irresistibly to gloom. A fraternal melancholy! For both I and Bartleby
were sons of Adam. I remembered the bright silks and sparkling faces I
had seen that day, in gala trim, swan-like sailing down the Mississippi
of Broadway; and I contrasted them with the pallid copyist, and thought
to myself, Ah, happiness courts the light, so we deem the world is gay;
but misery hides aloof, so we deem that misery there is none. These sad
fancyings—chimeras, doubtless, of a sick and silly brain—led on to
other and more special thoughts, concerning the eccentricities of
Bartleby. Presentiments of strange discoveries hovered round me. The
scrivener’s pale form appeared to me laid out, among uncaring
strangers, in its shivering winding sheet.
Suddenly I was attracted by Bartleby’s closed desk, the key in open
sight left in the lock.
I mean no mischief, seek the gratification of no heartless curiosity,
thought I; besides, the desk is mine, and its contents too, so I will
make bold to look within. Every thing was methodically arranged, the
papers smoothly placed. The pigeon holes were deep, and removing the
files of documents, I groped into their recesses. Presently I felt
something there, and dragged it out. It was an old bandanna
handkerchief, heavy and knotted. I opened it, and saw it was a savings’
bank.
I now recalled all the quiet mysteries which I had noted in the man. I
remembered that he never spoke but to answer; that though at intervals
he had considerable time to himself, yet I had never seen him
reading—no, not even a newspaper; that for long periods he would stand
looking out, at his pale window behind the screen, upon the dead brick
wall; I was quite sure he never visited any refectory or eating house;
while his pale face clearly indicated that he never drank beer like
Turkey, or tea and coffee even, like other men; that he never went any
where in particular that I could learn; never went out for a walk,
unless indeed that was the case at present; that he had declined
telling who he was, or whence he came, or whether he had any relatives
in the world; that though so thin and pale, he never complained of ill
health. And more than all, I remembered a certain unconscious air of
pallid—how shall I call it?—of pallid haughtiness, say, or rather an
austere reserve about him, which had positively awed me into my tame
compliance with his eccentricities, when I had feared to ask him to do
the slightest incidental thing for me, even though I might know, from
his long-continued motionlessness, that behind his screen he must be
standing in one of those dead-wall reveries of his.
Revolving all these things, and coupling them with the recently
discovered fact that he made my office his constant abiding place and
home, and not forgetful of his morbid moodiness; revolving all these
things, a prudential feeling began to steal over me. My first emotions
had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just in
proportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew to my
imagination, did that same melancholy merge into fear, that pity into
repulsion. So true it is, and so terrible too, that up to a certain
point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but,
in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err who
would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness
of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of
remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not
seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot
lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul rid of it. What I
saw that morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim of
innate and incurable disorder. I might give alms to his body; but his
body did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I
could not reach.
I did not accomplish the purpose of going to Trinity Church that
morning. Somehow, the things I had seen disqualified me for the time
from church-going. I walked homeward, thinking what I would do with
Bartleby. Finally, I resolved upon this;—I would put certain calm
questions to him the next morning, touching his history, etc., and if
he declined to answer them openly and unreservedly (and I supposed he
would prefer not), then to give him a twenty dollar bill over and above
whatever I might owe him, and tell him his services were no longer
required; but that if in any other way I could assist him, I would be
happy to do so, especially if he desired to return to his native place,
wherever that might be, I would willingly help to defray the expenses.
Moreover, if, after reaching home, he found himself at any time in want
of aid, a letter from him would be sure of a reply.
The next morning came.
“Bartleby,” said I, gently calling to him behind his screen.
No reply.
“Bartleby,” said I, in a still gentler tone, “come here; I am not going
to ask you to do any thing you would prefer not to do—I simply wish to
speak to you.”
Upon this he noiselessly slid into view.
“Will you tell me, Bartleby, where you were born?”
“I would prefer not to.”
“Will you tell me _any thing_ about yourself?”
“I would prefer not to.”
“But what reasonable objection can you have to speak to me? I feel
friendly towards you.”
He did not look at me while I spoke, but kept his glance fixed upon my
bust of Cicero, which as I then sat, was directly behind me, some six
inches above my head.
“What is your answer, Bartleby?” said I, after waiting a considerable
time for a reply, during which his countenance remained immovable, only
there was the faintest conceivable tremor of the white attenuated
mouth.
“At present I prefer to give no answer,” he said, and retired into his
hermitage.
It was rather weak in me I confess, but his manner on this occasion
nettled me. Not only did there seem to lurk in it a certain calm
disdain, but his perverseness seemed ungrateful, considering the
undeniable good usage and indulgence he had received from me.
Again I sat ruminating what I should do. Mortified as I was at his
behavior, and resolved as I had been to dismiss him when I entered my
offices, nevertheless I strangely felt something superstitious knocking
at my heart, and forbidding me to carry out my purpose, and denouncing
me for a villain if I dared to breathe one bitter word against this
forlornest of mankind. At last, familiarly drawing my chair behind his
screen, I sat down and said: “Bartleby, never mind then about revealing
your history; but let me entreat you, as a friend, to comply as far as
may be with the usages of this office. Say now you will help to examine
papers to-morrow or next day: in short, say now that in a day or two
you will begin to be a little reasonable:—say so, Bartleby.”
“At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable,” was his
mildly cadaverous reply.
Just then the folding-doors opened, and Nippers approached. He seemed
suffering from an unusually bad night’s rest, induced by severer
indigestion than common. He overheard those final words of Bartleby.
“_Prefer not_, eh?” gritted Nippers—“I’d _prefer_ him, if I were you,
sir,” addressing me—“I’d _prefer_ him; I’d give him preferences, the
stubborn mule! What is it, sir, pray, that he _prefers_ not to do now?”
Bartleby moved not a limb.
“Mr. Nippers,” said I, “I’d prefer that you would withdraw for the
present.”
Somehow, of late I had got into the way of involuntarily using this
word “prefer” upon all sorts of not exactly suitable occasions. And I
trembled to think that my contact with the scrivener had already and
seriously affected me in a mental way. And what further and deeper
aberration might it not yet produce? This apprehension had not been
without efficacy in determining me to summary means.
As Nippers, looking very sour and sulky, was departing, Turkey blandly
and deferentially approached.
“With submission, sir,” said he, “yesterday I was thinking about
Bartleby here, and I think that if he would but prefer to take a quart
of good ale every day, it would do much towards mending him, and
enabling him to assist in examining his papers.”
“So you have got the word too,” said I, slightly excited.
“With submission, what word, sir,” asked Turkey, respectfully crowding
himself into the contracted space behind the screen, and by so doing,
making me jostle the scrivener. “What word, sir?”
“I would prefer to be left alone here,” said Bartleby, as if offended
at being mobbed in his privacy.
“_That’s_ the word, Turkey,” said I—“that’s it.”
“Oh, _prefer_? oh yes—queer word. I never use it myself. But, sir, as I
was saying, if he would but prefer—”
“Turkey,” interrupted I, “you will please withdraw.”
“Oh certainly, sir, if you prefer that I should.”
As he opened the folding-door to retire, Nippers at his desk caught a
glimpse of me, and asked whether I would prefer to have a certain paper
copied on blue paper or white. He did not in the least roguishly accent
the word prefer. It was plain that it involuntarily rolled from his
tongue. I thought to myself, surely I must get rid of a demented man,