Bartleby, The Scrivener | Page 7

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 form him answerable to my own. But
indeed I might as well have essayed to strike fire with my knuckles against a bit of
Windsor soap. But one afternoon the evil impulse in me mastered me, and the following
little scene ensued:
"Bartleby," said I, "when those papers are all copied, I will compare them with you."
"I would prefer not to."
"How? Surely you do not mean to persist in that mulish vagary?"
No answer.
I threw open the folding-doors near by, and turning upon Turkey and Nippers, exclaimed
in an excited manner--
"He says, a second time, he won't examine his papers. What do you think of it, Turkey?"
It was afternoon, be it remembered. Turkey sat glowing like a brass boiler, his bald head
steaming, his hands reeling among his blotted papers.
"Think of it?" roared Turkey; "I think I'll just step behind his screen, and black his eyes
for him!"
So saying, Turkey rose to his feet and threw his arms into a pugilistic position. He was
hurrying away to make good his promise, when I detained him, alarmed at the effect of
incautiously rousing Turkey's combativeness after dinner.
"Sit down, Turkey," said I, "and hear what Nippers has to say. What do you think of it,
Nippers? Would I not be justified in immediately dismissing Bartleby?"
"Excuse me, that is for you to decide, sir. I think his conduct quite unusual, and indeed
unjust, as regards Turkey and myself. But it may only be a passing whim."
"Ah," exclaimed I, "you have strangely changed your mind then--you speak very gently
of him now."
"All beer," cried Turkey; "gentleness is effects of beer--Nippers and I dined together
to-day. You see how gentle I am, sir. Shall I go and black his eyes?"
"You refer to Bartleby, I suppose. No, not to-day, Turkey," I replied; "pray, put up your
fists."
I closed the doors, and again advanced towards Bartleby. I felt additional incentives
tempting me to my fate. I burned to be rebelled against again. I remembered that Bartleby
never left the office.
"Bartleby," said I, "Ginger Nut is away; just step round to the Post Office, won't you? (it
was but a three minute walk,) and see if there is any thing for me."
"I would prefer not to."
"You will not?"
"I prefer not."
I staggered to my desk, and sat there in a deep study. My blind inveteracy returned. Was
there any other thing in which I could procure myself to be ignominiously repulsed by
this lean, penniless wight?--my hired clerk? What added thing is there, perfectly
reasonable, that he will be sure to refuse to do?
"Bartleby!"
No answer.

"Bartleby," in a louder tone.
No answer.
"Bartleby," I roared.
Like a very ghost, agreeably to the laws of magical invocation, at the third summons, he
appeared at the entrance of his hermitage.
"Go to the next room, and tell Nippers to come to me."
"I prefer not to," he respectfully and slowly said, and mildly disappeared.
"Very good, Bartleby," said I, in a quiet sort of serenely severe self-possessed tone,
intimating the unalterable purpose of some terrible retribution very close at hand. At the
moment I half intended something of the kind. But upon the whole, as it was drawing
towards my dinner-hour, I thought it best to put on my hat and walk home for the day,
suffering much from perplexity and distress of mind.
Shall I acknowledge it? The conclusion of this while business was, that it soon became a
fixed fact of my chambers, that a pale young scrivener, by the name of Bartleby, and a
desk there; that he copied for me at the usual rate of four cents a folio (one hundred
words);