The Piazza Tales | Page 7

the wiser."
"But yellow-birds showed me the way--part way, at least."
"And then flew back. I guess they play about the mountain-side, but
don't make the top their home. And no doubt you think that, living so
lonesome here, knowing nothing, hearing nothing--little, at least, but
sound of thunder and the fall of trees--never reading, seldom speaking,
yet ever wakeful, this is what gives me my strange thoughts--for so you
call them--this weariness and wakefulness together Brother, who stands
and works in open air, would I could rest like him; but mine is mostly
but dull woman's work--sitting, sitting, restless sitting."
"But, do you not go walk at times? These woods are wide."
"And lonesome; lonesome, because so wide. Sometimes, 'tis true, of
afternoons, I go a little way; but soon come back again. Better feel lone
by hearth, than rock. The shadows hereabouts I know--those in the
woods are strangers."
"But the night?"
"Just like the day. Thinking, thinking--a wheel I cannot stop; pure want
of sleep it is that turns it."
"I have heard that, for this wakeful weariness, to say one's prayers, and
then lay one's head upon a fresh hop pillow--"
"Look!"
Through the fairy window, she pointed down the steep to a small
garden patch near by--mere pot of rifled loam, half rounded in by

sheltering rocks--where, side by side, some feet apart, nipped and puny,
two hop-vines climbed two poles, and, gaining their tip-ends, would
have then joined over in an upward clasp, but the baffled shoots,
groping awhile in empty air, trailed back whence they sprung.
"You have tried the pillow, then?"
"Yes."
"And prayer?"
"Prayer and pillow."
"Is there no other cure, or charm?"
"Oh, if I could but once get to yonder house, and but look upon
whoever the happy being is that lives there! A foolish thought: why do
I think it? Is it that I live so lonesome, and know nothing?"
"I, too, know nothing; and, therefore, cannot answer; but, for your sake,
Marianna, well could wish that I were that happy one of the happy
house you dream you see; for then you would behold him now, and, as
you say, this weariness might leave you."
--Enough. Launching my yawl no more for fairy-land, I stick to the
piazza. It is my box-royal; and this amphitheatre, my theatre of San
Carlo. Yes, the scenery is magical--the illusion so complete. And
Madam Meadow Lark, my prima donna, plays her grand engagement
here; and, drinking in her sunrise note, which, Memnon-like, seems
struck from the golden window, how far from me the weary face
behind it.
But, every night, when the curtain falls, truth comes in with darkness.
No light shows from the mountain. To and fro I walk the piazza deck,
haunted by Marianna's face, and many as real a story.

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 _employés_, my business, my chambers,
and general surroundings; because some such description is
indispensable to an adequate understanding of the chief character about
to be presented. Imprimis: I am a man who, from his youth upwards,
has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is
the best. Hence, though I belong to a profession proverbially energetic
and nervous, even to turbulence, at times, yet nothing of that sort have I
ever suffered to invade my peace. I am one of those unambitious
lawyers who never addresses a jury, or in any way draws down public
applause; but, in the