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Bartleby The Scrivener - Herman Melville · Classic Drama Book Collection

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  Speaker 1: Bartleby, the Scrivener. A Story of Wall Street by Herman Melville.
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  Speaker 1: I am a rather elderly man. The nature of my
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  Speaker 1: avocations for the last thirty years has brought me into
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  Speaker 1: more than ordinary contact with what would seem an interesting
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  Speaker 1: and somewhat singular set of men of whom, as yet
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  Speaker 1: nothing that I know of has ever been written. I
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  Speaker 1: mean the law copyists or scriveners. I have known very
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  Speaker 1: many of them, professionally and privately, and if I pleased,
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  Speaker 1: could relate divers histories at which good natured gentlemen might
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  Speaker 1: smile and sentimental souls might weep. But I waive the
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  Speaker 1: biographies of all other scriveners for a few passages in
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  Speaker 1: the life of Bartleby, who was a scrivener of the
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  Speaker 1: strangest I ever saw or heard of. While of other
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  Speaker 1: law copyists I might write the complete life of Bartleby,
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  Speaker 1: nothing of that sort can be done. I believe that
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  Speaker 1: no materials exist for a full and satisfactory biography of
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  Speaker 1: this man. It is an irreparable law to literature. Bartleby
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  Speaker 1: was one of those beings of whom nothing is ascertainable
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  Speaker 1: except from the original sources, and in his case, those
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  Speaker 1: are very small. What my own astonished eyes saw of Bartleby.
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  Speaker 1: That is all I know of him, except indeed one
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  Speaker 1: vague report, which will appear in the sequel ere introducing
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  Speaker 1: the Scribner as he first appeared to me. It is
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  Speaker 1: fit I make some mention of myself, my employees, my business,
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  Speaker 1: my chambers, and general surroundings, because some such description is
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  Speaker 1: indispensable to an adequate understanding of the chief character about
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  Speaker 1: to be presented in primise. I am a man who,
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  Speaker 1: from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound
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  Speaker 1: conviction that the easiest way of life is the best. Hence,
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  Speaker 1: though I belong to a profession proverbially energetic and nervous,
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  Speaker 1: even to turbulence at times, yet nothing of that sort
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  Speaker 1: have I ever suffered to invade my peace. I am
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  Speaker 1: one of those unambitious lawyers who never addresses a jury
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  Speaker 1: or in any way draws down public applause, but in
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  Speaker 1: the cool tranquility of a snug retreat, do a snug
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  Speaker 1: business among rich men's bonds and mortgages and title deeds.
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  Speaker 1: All who know me consider me an eminently safe man.
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  Speaker 1: The late John jacob Astor, a personage little given to
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  Speaker 1: poetic enthusiasm, had no hesitation in pronouncing my first grand
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  Speaker 1: point to be prudence. My next method, I do not
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  Speaker 1: speak it in vanity, but simply record the fact that
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  Speaker 1: I was not unemployed in my profession by the late
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  Speaker 1: John jacob Astor, a name which I admit I love
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  Speaker 1: to repeat, for it hath a rounded and orbicular sound
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  Speaker 1: to it, and rings like unto bullion. I will freely
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  Speaker 1: add that I was not insensible to the late John
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  Speaker 1: jacob Astor's good opinion. Some time prior to the period
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  Speaker 1: at which this little history begins, my avocations had been
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  Speaker 1: largely increased. The good old office, now extinct in the
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  Speaker 1: state of New York of a Master in Chancery had
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  Speaker 1: been conferred upon me. It was not a very arduous office,
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  Speaker 1: but very pleasantly remunerative. I seldom lose my temper, much
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  Speaker 1: more seldom indulge in dangerous indignation at wrongs and outrages.
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  Speaker 1: But I must be permitted to be rash here and
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  Speaker 1: declare that I consider the sudden and violent abrogation of
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  Speaker 1: the office of Master in Chancery by the New Constitution
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  Speaker 1: as a premature act, inasmuch as I had counted upon
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  Speaker 1: a life lease of the prophets, whereas I only received
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  Speaker 1: those of a few short years. But this is by
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  Speaker 1: the way. My chambers were upstairs at number blank Wall Street.
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  Speaker 1: At one end they looked upon the white wall of
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  Speaker 1: the interior of a spacious skylight shaft, penetrating the building
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  Speaker 1: from top to bottom. This view might have been considered
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  Speaker 1: rather tame than otherwise deficient in what landscape painters call life.
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  Speaker 1: But if so, the view from the other end of
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  Speaker 1: my chambers offered at least a contrast, if nothing more.
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  Speaker 1: In that direction, my windows commanded an unobstructed view of
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  Speaker 1: a lofty brick wall, black by age and everlasting shade.
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  Speaker 1: Which wall required no spyglass to bring out its lurking beauties,
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  Speaker 1: but for the benefit of all near sighted spectators, was
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  Speaker 1: pushed up to within ten feet of my window panes.
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  Speaker 1: Owing to the great height of the surrounding buildings and
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  Speaker 1: my chambers being on the second floor, the interval between
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  Speaker 1: this wall and mine, not a little resembled a huge
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  Speaker 1: square cistern. At the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby,
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  Speaker 1: I had two persons as copyists in my employment, and
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  Speaker 1: a promising lad as an office boy. First Turkey, second Nippers,
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  Speaker 1: third ginger Nut. These may seem names, the like of
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  Speaker 1: which are not usually found in the directory. In truth,
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  Speaker 1: they were nicknames mutually conferred upon each other by my
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  Speaker 1: three clerks, and were deemed expressive of their respective persons
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  Speaker 1: or characters. He was a short, percy Englishman of about
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  Speaker 1: my own age, that is, somewhere not far from sixty.
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  Speaker 1: In the morning, one might say his face was of
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  Speaker 1: a fine florid hue. But after twelve o'clock meridian his
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  Speaker 1: dinner hour, it blazed like a grateful of Christmas coals,
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  Speaker 1: and continued blazing, but as it were, with a gradual
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  Speaker 1: wane till six o'clock PM or thereabouts, after which I
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  Speaker 1: saw no more of the proprietor of the face, which,
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  Speaker 1: gaining its meridian with the sun, seemed to set with it,
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  Speaker 1: to rise, culminate, and decline the following day with the
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  Speaker 1: like regularity and undiminished glory. There are many singular coincidences
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  Speaker 1: I have known in the course of my life, not
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  Speaker 1: the least among which was the fact that, exactly when
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  Speaker 1: Turkey displayed his fullest beams from his red and radiant countenance,
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  Speaker 1: just then too. At that critical moment began the daily
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  Speaker 1: period when I considered his business capacities as seriously disturbed
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  Speaker 1: for the remainder of the twenty four hours. Not that
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  Speaker 1: he would was absolutely idle or averse to business, then,
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  Speaker 1: far from it. The difficulty was he was apt to
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  Speaker 1: be altogether too energetic. There was a strange, inflamed, flurried,
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  Speaker 1: flighty recklessness of activity about him. He would be incautious
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  Speaker 1: in dipping his pen into his inkstand. All his blots
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  Speaker 1: upon my documents were dropped there after twelve o'clock Meridian. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: not only would he be reckless and sadly given to
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  Speaker 1: making blots in the afternoon, but some days he went
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  Speaker 1: further and was rather noisy. At such times too, his
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  Speaker 1: face flamed with augmented blazonry, as if cannel coal had
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  Speaker 1: been heaped on anthracite. He made an unpleasant racket with
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  Speaker 1: his chair, spilled his sandbox. In mending his pens, impatiently
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  Speaker 1: split them all to pieces and threw them on the floor.
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  Speaker 1: In a sudden passion, stood up and leaned over his table,
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  Speaker 1: boxing his papers about in a most indecorous manner. Very
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  Speaker 1: sad to behold in an elderly man like him. Nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: as he was in many ways a most valuable person
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  Speaker 1: to me, and all the time before twelve o'clock, Meridian
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  Speaker 1: was the quickest, steadiest creature, too, accomplishing a great deal
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  Speaker 1: of work in a style not easy to be matched.
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  Speaker 1: For these reasons, I was willing to overlook his eccentricities,
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  Speaker 1: though indeed occasionally I remonstrated with him. I did this
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  Speaker 1: very gently, however, because though the civilist, nay, the blandest
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  Speaker 1: and most reverential of men in the morning, yet in
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  Speaker 1: the afternoon he was disposed upon provocation to be slightly
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  Speaker 1: rash with his tongue, in fact insolent. Now valuing his
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  Speaker 1: morning services as I did, and resolved not to lose them,
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  Speaker 1: yet at the same time, made uncomfortable by his inflamed
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  Speaker 1: ways after twelve o'clock, and being a man of peace,
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  Speaker 1: unwilling by my admonitions to call forth unseemly retorts from him,
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  Speaker 1: I took upon me one Saturday noon he was always
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  Speaker 1: worse on Saturdays, to hint to him very kindly that perhaps,
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  Speaker 1: now that he was growing old, it might be well
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  Speaker 1: to abridge his labors. In short, he need not come
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  Speaker 1: to my chambers after twelve o'clock. But dinner over had
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  Speaker 1: best go home to his lodgings and rest himself till
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  Speaker 1: tea time. But no, he insisted upon his afternoon devotions.
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  Speaker 1: His countenance became intolerably fervid, as he oratorically assured me,
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  Speaker 1: gesticulating with a long ruler at the other end of
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  Speaker 1: the room, that if his services in the morning were useful,
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  Speaker 1: how indispensable, then in the afternoon, with submission, sir, said Turkey,
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  Speaker 1: on this occasion, I consider myself your right hand man.
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  Speaker 1: In the morning, I but marshal and deploy my columns.
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  Speaker 1: But in the afternoon I put myself at their head
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  Speaker 1: and gallantly charged the foe. Thus and he made a
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  Speaker 1: violent thrust with the ruler. But the blot's Turkey intimated
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  Speaker 1: eye true. But with submission, sir, behold these hairs. I
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  Speaker 1: am getting old. Surely, Sir, A blot or two of
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  Speaker 1: a warm afternoon is not to be severely urged against
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  Speaker 1: gray hairs old age, even if it blot the page
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  Speaker 1: as honorable. With submission, sir, we both are getting old.
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  Speaker 1: This appeal to my fellow feeling was hardly to be
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  Speaker 1: resisted at all. Events I saw that go, he would not,
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  Speaker 1: so I made up my mind to let him stay,
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  Speaker 1: resolving nevertheless, to see to it that during the afternoon
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  Speaker 1: he had to do with my less important papers. Nippers,
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  Speaker 1: the second on my list, was a whiskered, sallow and
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  Speaker 1: upon the whole rather piradical looking young man of about
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  Speaker 1: five and twenty. I always deemed him the victim of
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  Speaker 1: two evil powers, ambition and indigestion. The ambition was evinced
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  Speaker 1: by a certain impatience of the duties of a mere copyist,
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  Speaker 1: an unwarrantable usurpation of strictly professional affairs such as the
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  Speaker 1: original drawing up of legal documents. The indigestion seemed betokened
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  Speaker 1: in an occasional nervous testiness and grinning irritability, causing the
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  Speaker 1: teeth to audibly grind together over missus stakes committed in copying,
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  Speaker 1: unnecessary maledictions, hissed rather than spoken in the heat of business,
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  Speaker 1: and especially by a continual discontent with the height of
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  Speaker 1: the table where he worked. Though of a very ingenious
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  Speaker 1: mechanical turn, Nippers could never get this table to suit him.
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  Speaker 1: He put chips under it, blocks of various sorts, bits
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  Speaker 1: of pasteboard, and at last went so far as to
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  Speaker 1: attempt an exquisite adjustment by final pieces of folded blotting paper.
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  Speaker 1: But no invention would answer. If for the sake of
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  Speaker 1: easing his back, he brought the table lid at a
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  Speaker 1: sharp angle, well up towards his chin and wrote there
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  Speaker 1: like a man using the steep roof of a Dutch
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  Speaker 1: house for his desk, then he declared that it stopped
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  Speaker 1: the circulation in his arms. If now he lowered the
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  Speaker 1: table to his waistbands and stooped over it in writing,
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  Speaker 1: then there was a sore aching in his back. In short,
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  Speaker 1: the truth of the matter was Nippers knew not what
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  Speaker 1: he wanted, or if he wanted anything, it was to
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  Speaker 1: be rid of a scrivener's table altogether. Among the manifestations
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  Speaker 1: of his diseased ambition was a fondness he had for
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  Speaker 1: receiving visits from certain ambiguous looking fellows in seedy coats,
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  Speaker 1: whom he called his clients. Indeed, I was aware that
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  Speaker 1: not only was he at times considerable of a ward politician,
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  Speaker 1: but he occasionally did a little business at the justice's courts,
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  Speaker 1: and was not unknown on the steps of the tombs
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  Speaker 1: I have good reason to believe, however, that one individual
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  Speaker 1: who called upon him at my chambers, and who with
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  Speaker 1: a grand air he insisted was his client, was no
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  Speaker 1: other than a dun and the alleged title deed a bill.
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  Speaker 1: But with all his failings and the annoyances he caused
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  Speaker 1: me Nippers, like his compatriot Turkey, was a very useful
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  Speaker 1: man to me, wrote a neat, swift hand, and when
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  Speaker 1: he chose was not deficient in a gentlemanly sort of deportment.
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  Speaker 1: Added to this, he always dressed in a gentlemanly sort
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  Speaker 1: of way, and so incidentally reflected credit upon my chambers.
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  Speaker 1: Whereas with res to Turkey, I had much ado to
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  Speaker 1: keep him from being a reproach to me. His clothes
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  Speaker 1: were apt to look oily and smell of eating houses.
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  Speaker 1: He wore his pantaloons very loose and baggy in summer.
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  Speaker 1: His coats were execrable, his hat not to be handled.
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  Speaker 1: But while the hat was a thing of indifference to me,
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  Speaker 1: inasmuch as his natural civility and deference as a dependent
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  Speaker 1: Englishman always led him to doff it the moment he
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  Speaker 1: entered the room, Yet his coat was another matter concerning
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  Speaker 1: his coats, I reasoned with him, but with no effect.
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  Speaker 1: The truth was, I suppose that a man of so
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  Speaker 1: small an income could not afford to sport such a
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  Speaker 1: lustrous face and a lustrous coat at one and the
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  Speaker 1: same time, as Nippers once observed, Turkey's money went chiefly
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  Speaker 1: for red ink. One winter day, I presented Turkey with
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  Speaker 1: a highly respectable looking coat of my own, a padded
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  Speaker 1: gray coat of a most comfortable warmth, and which buttoned
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  Speaker 1: straight up from the knee to the neck. I thought
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  Speaker 1: Turkey would appreciate the favor and abate his rashness and
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  Speaker 1: obstreppery busness of afternoons. But no, I verily believed that
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  Speaker 1: buttoning himself up in so downy and blanket like a
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  Speaker 1: coat had a pernicious effect upon him, upon the same
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  Speaker 1: principle that too much oats are bad for horses. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: precisely as a rash rest of horses said to feel
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  Speaker 1: his oats, so Turkey felt his coat. It made him insolent.
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  Speaker 1: He was a man whom prosperity harmed. Though concerning the
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  Speaker 1: self indulgent habits of Turkey, I had my own private surmises.
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  Speaker 1: Yet touching Nippers, I was well persuaded that whatever might
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  Speaker 1: be his faults in other respects, he was at least
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  Speaker 1: a temperate young man. But indeed nature herself seemed to
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  Speaker 1: have been his vintner, and at his birth charged him
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  Speaker 1: so thoroughly with an irritable brandylike disposition that all subsequent
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  Speaker 1: quotations were needless. When I consider how amid the stillness
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  Speaker 1: of my chambers, Nippers would sometimes impatiently rise from his seat, and,
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  Speaker 1: stooping over his table, spread his arms wide apart, seized
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  Speaker 1: the whole desk, and move it and jerk it with
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  Speaker 1: a grim grinding motion on the floor, as if the
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  Speaker 1: table were a perverse, voluntary agent intent on thwarting and
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  Speaker 1: vexing him. I plainly perceived that for Nippers, brandy and
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  Speaker 1: water were altogether superfluous. It was fortunate for me that,
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  Speaker 1: owing to its peculiar cause indigestion, the irritability and consequent
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  Speaker 1: nervousness of Nippers were mainly observable in the morning, while
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  Speaker 1: in the afternoon he was comparatively mild, so that Turkey's
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  Speaker 1: paroxysms only coming on about twelve o'clock. I never had
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  Speaker 1: to do with their eccentricities at one time, their fits
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  Speaker 1: relieved each other like guards. When Nippers was on, Turkey's
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  Speaker 1: was off, and vice versa. This was a good natural
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  Speaker 1: arrangement under the circumstances. Ginger Nut, the third on my list,
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  Speaker 1: was a lad some twelve years old. His father was
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  Speaker 1: a car man, ambitious of seeing his son on the
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  Speaker 1: bench instead of a cart before he died, so he
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  Speaker 1: sent him to my office as student at law errand boy,
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  Speaker 1: and and cleaner and sweeper, at the rate of one
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  Speaker 1: dollar a week. He had a little desk to himself,
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  Speaker 1: but he did not use it much. Upon inspection, the
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  Speaker 1: drawer exhibited a great array of the shells of various
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  Speaker 1: sorts of nuts. Indeed, to this quick witted youth, the
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  Speaker 1: whole noble science of the law was contained in a nutshell.
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  Speaker 1: Not the least among the employments of ginger Nut, as
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  Speaker 1: well as one which he discharged with the most alacrity,
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  Speaker 1: was his duty as cake and apple purveyor for Turkey
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  Speaker 1: and Nippers, copying law papers. Being proverbially dry husky sort
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  Speaker 1: of business, my two scriveners were fain to moisten their mouths,
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  Speaker 1: very often, with spitzenbergs to be had at the numerous
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  Speaker 1: stalls nigh the custom house and post office. Also they
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  Speaker 1: sent ginger nut very frequently for that peculiar cake, small flat,
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  Speaker 1: round and very spicy, after which he had been named
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  Speaker 1: by them. Of a cold morning when business was but dull,
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  Speaker 1: Turkey would gobble up scores of these cakes as if
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  Speaker 1: they were mere wafers. Indeed, they sell them at the
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  Speaker 1: rate of six or eight for a penny. The scrape
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  Speaker 1: of his pen blending with the crunching of the crisp
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  Speaker 1: particles in his mouth. Of all the fiery afternoon blunders
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  Speaker 1: and flurried rashnesses of Turkey was his once moistening a
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  Speaker 1: ginger cake between his lips and clapping it on to
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  Speaker 1: a mortgage for a seal. I came within an ace
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  Speaker 1: of dismissing him then, but he mollified me by making
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  Speaker 1: an oriental bow and saying, with submission, sir, it was
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  Speaker 1: generous of me to find you in stationary on my
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  Speaker 1: own account. Now, my original business, that of a conveyancer
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  Speaker 1: and title hunter and drawer up of recondite documents of
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  Speaker 1: all sorts, was considerably increased by receiving the Master's office.
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  Speaker 1: There was now great work for Scrivener's not only must
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  Speaker 1: I push the clerks already with me, but I must
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  Speaker 1: have additional help. In answer to my advertisement, a motionless
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: young man one morning stood upon my office threshold, the
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  Speaker 1: door being opened, for it was summer. I can see
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  Speaker 1: that figure now, pallidly, neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn. It
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  Speaker 1: was Bartleby. After a few words touching his qualifications, I
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  Speaker 1: engaged him, glad to have among my cores of copyists
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  Speaker 1: a man of so singularly sedate, an aspect which I
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  Speaker 1: thought might operate beneficially upon the flighty temper of Turkey
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  Speaker 1: and the fiery one of nippers. I should have stated
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  Speaker 1: before that ground glass folding doors divided my premises into
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  Speaker 1: two parts, one of which was occupied by my scriveners,
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  Speaker 1: the other by myself. According to my humor, I threw
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  Speaker 1: open these doors or closed them. I resolved to assign
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  Speaker 1: Bartleby a corner by the folding doors, but on my
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  Speaker 1: side of them, so as to have this quiet man
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  Speaker 1: within easy call in case any trifling thing was to
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  Speaker 1: be done. I placed his desk close up to a
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  Speaker 1: small side window in that part of the room, a
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  Speaker 1: window which originally had afforded a lateral view of certain
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: grimy back yards and bricks, but which, owing to subsequent erections,
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  Speaker 1: commanded at present no of you at all. Though it
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  Speaker 1: gave some light. Within three feet of the panes was
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  Speaker 1: a wall, and the light came down from far above
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: between two lofty buildings, as from a very small opening
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  Speaker 1: in a dome. Still further to a satisfactory arrangement, I
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  Speaker 1: procured a high green folding screen which might entirely isolate
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  Speaker 1: Bartleby from my sight, though not remove him from my voice,
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  Speaker 1: and thus in a manner privacy and society were conjoined.
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  Speaker 1: At first Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As
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  Speaker 1: if long famishing for something to copy, he seemed to
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  Speaker 1: gorge himself on my documents. There was no pause for digestion.
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  Speaker 1: He ran a day and night line, copying by sunlight
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  Speaker 1: and by candlelight. I should have been quite delighted with
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  Speaker 1: his application, had he been cheerfully industrious, But he wrote
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  Speaker 1: on silently, palely Mechanically. It is, of course an indispensable
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: part of a scrivener's business to verify the accuracy of
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: his copy word by word, where there where are two
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: or more scriveners in an office. They assist each other
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: in this examination, one reading from the copy, the other
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: holding the original. It is a very dull, wearisome, and
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: lethargic affair. I can readily imagine that to some sanguine
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: temperaments it would be altogether intolerable. For example, I cannot
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: credit that the meddlesome poet Byron would have contentedly sat
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: down with Bartleby to examine a law document of say
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: five hundred pages, closely written in a crimpy hand. Now
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: and then, in the haste of business. It had been
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: my habit to assist in comparing some brief document, myself
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: calling Turkey or Nippers for this purpose. One object I
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: had in placing Bartleby so handy to me behind the screen,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: was to avail myself of his services on such trivial occasions.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: It was on the third day I think of his
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: being with me, and before any necessity had arisen for
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: having his own writing examined, that, being much hurried to
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: complete a small affair I had in hand, I abruptly
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: called to Bartleby. In my haste and natural expectancy of
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: instant compliance, I sat with my head bent over the
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: original on my desk, and my right hand sideways and
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: somewhat nervously extended with the copy, so that immediately upon
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: emerging from his retreat, Bartleby might snatch it and proceed
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: to business without the least delay. In this very attitude
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: did I sit when I called to him, rapidly stating
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: what it was I wanted him to do, namely, to
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: examine a small paper with me. Imagine my surprise, nay,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: my consternation, when, without moving from his privacy, Bartleby, in
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: a singularly mild, firm voice, replied, I would prefer not to.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: I sat awhile in perfect silence, rallying my stunned faculties.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Immediately it occurred to me that my ears had deceived me,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: or Bartleby had entirely misunderstood my meaning. I repeated my
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: request in the clearest tone I could assume, but in
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: quite as clear a one came the previous reply, I
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: would prefer not to prefer not to, echoed I, rising
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: in high excitement and crossing the room with a stride.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: What do you mean? Are you moon struck? I want
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: you to help me compare this sheet. Here, take it,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: and I thrust it towards him, I would prefer not to,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: said he. I looked at him steadfastly. His face was
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: leanly composed, his gray eye dimly calm. Not a wrinkle
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: of agitation rippled him. Had there been the least uneasiness, anger, impatience,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: or impertinence in his manner, in other words, had there
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: been anything ordinarily human about him, doubtless I should have
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: violently dismissed him from the premises. But as it was,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: I should have as soon thought of turning my pale
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: plaster of Paris bust of Cicero out of doors. I
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: stood gazing at him awhile as he went on with
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: his own writing, and then reseated myself at my desk.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: This is very strange, thought I. What had one best do?
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: But my business hurried me. I concluded to forget the
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: matter for the present, reserving it for my future leisure. So,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: calling Nippers from the other room, the paper was speedily
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: examined end of section one, section two. A few days
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: after this, Bartleby concluded four lengthy documents, being quadruplicates of
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: a week's testimony taken before me in my High Court
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: of Chancery. It became necessary to examine them. It was
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: an important suit, and great accuracy was imperative. Having all
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: things arranged, I called Turkey Nippers and ginger Nut from
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: the next room, meaning to place the four copies in
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: the hands of my four clerks while I should read
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: from the original. Accordingly, Turkey Nippers and ginger Nut had
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: taken their seats in a row, each with his document
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: in hand. When I called to Bartleby to join this
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: interesting group. Bartleby, quick, I'm waiting. I heard a slow
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: scrape of his chair legs on the uncarpeted floor, and
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: soon he appeared, standing at the entrance of his hermitage.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: What is wanted, he said, mildly. The copies. The copies,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: said I hurriedly. We're going to examine them there, and
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: I held towards him the fourth quadruplicate. I would prefer
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: not to, he said, and gently disappeared behind the screen.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: For a few moments, I was turned into a pillar
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: of salt, standing at the head of my seated column
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: of clerks. Recovering myself, I advanced towards the screen and
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: demanded the reason for such extraordinary conduct? Why do you refuse?
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: I would prefer not to With any other man, I
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: should have flown outright into a dreadful passion, scorned all
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: further words, and thrust him ignominiously from my presence. But
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: there was something about Bartleby that not only strangely disarmed me,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: but in a wonderful manner, touched and disconcerted me. I
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: began to reason with him, these are your own copies
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: we are about to examine. It is labor saving to you,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: because one examination will answer for your four papers. It
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: is common usage. Every copyist is bound to help examine
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: his copy, is it not? So? Will you not speak? Answer?
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: I prefer not to, he replied, in a flute like tone.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: It seemed to me that while I had been addressing him,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: he carefully revolved every statement that I made, fully comprehended
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the meaning, could not gainsay the irresistible conclusions. But at
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: the same time, some paramount consideration prevailed with him to
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: reply as he did. You are decided, then, not to
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: comply with my request, A request made according to common
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: usage and common sense. He briefly gave me to understand
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: that on that point my judgment was sound. Yes, his
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: decision was irreversible. It is not seldom the case that
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: when a man is browbeaten in some unprecedented and violently
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: unreasonable way, he begins to stagger in his own plainest faith.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: He begins, as it were, vaguely, to surmise that, wonderful
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: as it may be, all the justice and all the
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: reason is on the other side. Accordingly, if any disinterested
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: persons are present, he turns to them for some reinforcement
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: for his own faltering mind. Turkey said, I what do
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: you think of this? Am I not right with submission? Sir?
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Said Turkey, with his blandest tone, I think that you are.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Nippers said I, what do you think of it? I
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: think I should kick him out of the office. The
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: reader of nice perceptions will here perceive that it being mourning.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Turkey's answer is couched in polite and tranquil terms, but
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Nippers replies in ill tempered ones or to repeat a
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: previous sentence. Nippers's ugly mood was on duty and Turkey's off.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Ginger Nut said, I willing to enlist the smallest suffrage
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: in my behalf. What do you think of it? I think, sir,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: he's a little looney, replied ginger Nut with a grin.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: You hear what they say, said I, turning towards the screen,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: come forth and do your duty. But he vouchsafed no reply.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: I pondered a moment in sore perplexity, but once more
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: business hurried me, I determined again to postpone the consideration
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: of this dilemma to my future leisure. With a little trouble,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: we made out to examine the papers without Bartleby, though
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: at every page or two Turkey deferentially dropped his opinion
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: that this proceeding was quite out of the common, while Nippers,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: twitching his chair with a dyspeptic nervousness, ground out between
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: his set teeth occasional hissing maledictions against the stubborn oaf
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: behind the screen. And for his Nipper's part, this was
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: the first and the last time he would do another
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: man's business without pay. Meanwhile, Bartleby sat in his hermitage,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: oblivious to everything but his own peculiar business. There some
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: days passed the scrivener being employed upon another lengthy work.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: His late remarkable conduct led me to regard his ways narrowly.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: I observed that he he never went to dinner, indeed
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: that he never went anywhere. As yet I had, never,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: of my personal knowledge, known him to be outside of
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: my office. He was a perpetual sentry in the corner
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: at about eleven o'clock, though in the morning I noticed
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: that ginger nut would advance toward the opening in Bartleby's screen,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: as if silently beckoned thither by a gesture invisible to
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: me where I sat. The boy would then leave the office,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: jingling a few pence, and reappear with a handful of
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: ginger nuts, which he delivered in the hermitage, receiving two
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: of the cakes for his trouble. He lives then on
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: ginger nuts, thought I never eats a dinner properly speaking.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: He must be a vegetarian, then, but no, he never
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: eats even vegetables. He eats nothing but ginger nuts. My
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: mind then ran on in reveries concerning the probable effects
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: upon the human constitution of living entirely on ginger nuts.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Ginger nuts are so called because they contained ginger as
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: one of their peculiar constituents and the final flavor one. Now,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: what was ginger a hot spicy thing? Was Bartleby hot
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: and spicy? Not at all? Ginger then had no effect
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: upon Bartleby, probably he preferred it should have none. Nothing
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance. If
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the individual so resisted be of a not inhumane temper,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: and the resisting one perfectly harmless in his passivity, then
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: in the better moods of the former, he will endeavor
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: charitably to construe to his imagination what proves impossible to
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: be solved by his judgment. Even so, for the most part,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I regarded Bartleby in his ways, poor fellow, thought I
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: he means no mischief. It is plain he intends no insolence.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: His aspect sufficiently evinces that his eccentricities are involuntary. He
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: is useful to me. I can get along with him.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: If I turn him away, the chances are he will
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: fall in with some less indulgent employer, and then he
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: will be rudely treated and perhaps driven forth miserably to starve. Yes,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: here I can cheaply purchase a delicious self approval. To
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: befriend Bartleby, to humor him in his strange wilfulness, will
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: cost me little or nothing while I lay up in
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: my soul. What will eventually prove a sweet morsel for
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: my conscience. But this mood was not invariable with me.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: The passiveness of Bartleby sometimes irritated me. I felt strangely
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: goaded on to encounter him in new opposition, to elicit
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: some angry spark from him answerable to my own. But
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: indeed I might as well have essayed to strike fire
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: with my knuckles against a bit of windsor soap. But
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: one afternoon the evil impulse in me mastered me, and
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: the following little scene ensued. Bartleby said, I, when those
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: papers are all copied, I will compare them with you.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: I would prefer not to. How surely you do not
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: mean to persist in that mulish vagary. No answer, I
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: threw open the folding doors near by, and turning upon
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Turkey and Nippers exclaimed in an excited manner. He says,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: a second time, he won't examine his papers. What do
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: you think of it, Turkey? It was afternoon, be it, remembered.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Turkey sat glowing like a brass boiler, his bald head steaming,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: his hands reeling among his blotted papers. Think of it,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: roared Turkey. I think I'll just step behind his screen
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: and black his eyes for him. So saying. Turkey rose
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: to his feet and threw his arms into a pugilistic position.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: He was hurrying away to make good his promise when
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I detained him, alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Turkey's combativeness. After dinner sit down, Turkey said, I and
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: hear what Nippers has to say. What do you think
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: of it? Nippers? Would I not be justified in immediately
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: dismissing Bartleby? Excuse me? That is for you to decide, Sir,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I think his conduct quite unusual and indeed unjust, as
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: regards Turkey and myself. But it may only be a
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: passing whim Ah, exclaimed I. You have strangely changed your mind.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Then you speak very gently of him. Now all beer,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: cried Turkey. Gentleness's effects of beer. Nippers and I dined
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: together to day. You see how gentle I am? Sir?
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: Shall I go and black his eyes? You refer to Bartleby?
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: I suppose no, not to day, Turkey, I replied, pray,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: put up your fists. I closed the doors and again
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: advanced towards Bartleby. I felt additional incentives tempting me to
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: my fate. I burned to be rebelled against again. I
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: remembered that Bartleby never left the office. Bartleby said, I,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: ginger nut is away. Just step round to the post office,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: won't you? It was but a three minute walk, and
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: see if there is anything for me. I would prefer
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: not to you, will not? I prefer not. I staggered
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: to my desk and sat there in a deep study.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: My blind inveteracy returned. Was there any other thing in
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: which I could procure myself to be ignominiously repulsed by
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: this lean, penniless wight, my hired clerk? What added thing
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: is there perfectly reasonable that he will be sure to
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: refuse to do? Bartleby? No answer, Bartleby, in a louder tone.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: No answer, Bartleby, I roared like a very ghost, agreeably
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: to the laws of magical invocation. At the third summons,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: he appeared at the entrance of his hermitage. Go to
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: the next room and tell nippers to come to me.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: I prefer not to, he respectfully and slowly said, and
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: mildly disappeared. Very good. Bartleby said I, in a quiet,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: sort of serenely severe, self possessed tone, intimating the unalterable
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: purpose of some terrible retribution very close at hand. At
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: the moment I half intended something of the kind, But
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: upon the whole, as it was drawing towards my dinner hour,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: I thought it best to put on my hat and
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: walk home for the day, suffering much from perplexity and
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: distress of mind, Shall I acknowledge it? The conclusion of
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: this whole business was that it soon became a fixed
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: fact of my chambers that a pale young scrivener by
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: the name of Bartleby, and a desk there, that he
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: copied for me at the usual rate of four cents
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: a folio one hundred words, but he was permanently exempt
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: from examining the work done by him, that duty being
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: transferred to Turkey and Nippers, one of compliment, doubtless to
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: their superior acuteness. Moreover, said Bartleby was never, on any
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: account to be dispatched on the most trivial errand of
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: any sort, and that even if entreated to take upon
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: him such a matter, it was generally understood that he
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: would prefer not to, In other words, that he would
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: refuse point blank. As days passed on, I became considerably
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: reconciled to Bartleby, his steadiness, his freedom from all dissipation,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: his incessant industry, except when he chose to throw himself
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: elf into a standing reverie behind his screen. His great stillness,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: his unalterableness of demeanor under all circumstances, made him a
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: valuable acquisition. One prime thing was this, he was always there,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: first in the morning, continually through the day, and the
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: last at night. I had a singular confidence in his honesty.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: I felt my most precious papers perfectly safe in his hands. Sometimes,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: to be sure, I could not, for the very soul
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: of me, avoid falling into sudden spasmodic passions with him,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: for it was exceeding difficult to bear in mind all
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: the time those strange peculiarities, privileges, and unheard of exemptions
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: forming the tacit stipulations on Bartleby's part, under which he
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: remained in my office. Now and then, in the eagerness
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: of dispatching pressing business, I would inadvertently summon Bartleby in
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: a short, rapid tone, to put his finger, say on
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: the incipient tie of a bit of red tape with
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: which I was about pressing some papers. Of course, from
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: behind the screen, the usual answer I prefer not to
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: was sure to come. And then how could a human creature,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: with the common infirmities of our nature refrain from bitterly
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: exclaiming upon such perverseness, such unreasonableness. However, every added repulse
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: of this sort which I received only tended to lessen
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: the probability of my repeating the inadvertence. Here it must
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: be said that, according to the custom of most legal
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: gentlemen occupying chambers in densely populated law buildings, there were
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: several keys to my door. One was kept by a
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: woman residing in the attic, which person weakly scrubbed and
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: daily swept and dusted my apartments. Another was kept by
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: turkey for convenience sake. The third I sometimes carried in
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: my own pocket. The fourth I knew not who had Now.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: One Sunday morning, I happened to go to Trinity Church
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: to hear a celebrated preacher, and finding myself rather early
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: on the ground, I thought I would walk around to
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: my chambers for a while. Luckily I had my key
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: with me, But upon applying it to the lock, I
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: found it resisted by something inserted from the inside. Quite surprised,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: I called out, when, to my consternation, a key was
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: turned from within, and thrusting his lean visage at me
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: and holding the door ajar. The apparition of Bartleby appeared
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: in his shirt sleeves and otherwise in a strangely tattered dishabilee,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: saying quietly that he was sorry, but he was deeply
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: engaged just then and preferred not admitting me at present.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: In a brief word or two, he moreover added that
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: perhaps I had better walk round the block two or
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: three times, and by that time he would probably have
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: concluded his affairs. Now, the utterly unsurmised appearance of Bartleby
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: tenanting my law chambers of a Sunday morning, with his
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: cadaverously gentlemanly nonchalance, yet withal firm and self possessed, had
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: such a strange effect on me that incontinently I slunk
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: away from my own door and did as desired, but
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: not without sundry twinges of impotent rebellion against the mild
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: effrontery of this unaccountable scrivener. Indeed, it was his wonderful mildness,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: chiefly which not only disarmed me, but unmanned me, as
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: it were, for I consider that one, for the time
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: is a sort of unmanned when he tranquility permits his
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: hired clerk to dictate to him and order him away
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: from his own premises. Furthermore, I was full of uneasiness
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: as to what Bartleby could possibly be doing in my office,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: in his shirt sleeves and in an otherwise dismantled condition
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: of a Sunday morning. Was anything amiss going on? Nay,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: that was out of the question. It was not to
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: be thought of for a moment that Bartleby was an
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: immoral person. But what could he be doing there? Copying
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Nay Again, whatever might be his eccentricities, Bartleby was an
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: eminently decorous person. He would be the last man to
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: sit down to his desk in any state approaching to nudity. Besides,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: it was Sunday, and there was something about Bartleby that
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: forbade the supposition that he would, by any secular occupation,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: violate the proprieties of the day. Nevertheless, my mind was
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: not pacified, and full of a restless curiosity. At last,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: I returned to the door without hindrance. I inserted my key,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: opened it, and entered. Bartleby was not to be seen.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: I looked round anxiously peeped behind his screen, but it
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: was very plain that he was gone. Upon. More closely
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: examining the place, I surmised that for an indefinite period
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Bartleby must have ate, dressed and slept in my office,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: and that too without plate, mirror or bed. The cushioned
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: seat of a rickety old sofa in one corner bore,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: the faint impress of a lean reclining form rolled away.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Under his desk, I found a blanket under the empty grate,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: a blacking box and brush on a chair, a tin
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: basin with soat, and a ragged towel in a newspaper,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: a few crumbs of ginger nuts, and a morsel of cheese. Yes,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: thought I, it is evident enough that Bartleby has been
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: making his home here, keeping Bachelor's Hall all by himself.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Immediately then the thought came sweeping across me. What miserable
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: friendlessness and loneliness are here? Revealed? His poverty is great,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: but his solitude, how horrible. Think of it of a
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Sunday wall street is deserted as petra, and every night
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: of every day it is an emptiness this building too,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: which of week days hums with industry, and life at
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: nightfall echoes with sheer vacancy, and all through Sunday is forlorn.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: And here Bartleby makes his home, sole spectator of a
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: solitude which he has seen all populace, a sort of
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: innocent and transformed Marius brooding among the ruins of Carthage
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: end of Section two, Section three. For the first time
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: in my life life, a feeling of overpowering, stinging melancholy
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: seized me. Before I had never experienced aught, but a
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: not unpleasing sadness. The bond of a common humanity now
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: drew me irresistibly to gloom, a fraternal melancholy, for both
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: I and Bartleby were sons of Adam. I remembered the
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: bright silks and sparkling faces I had seen that day
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: in Gala trim swanlike sailing down the Mississippi of Broadway,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: and I contrasted them with the pallid copyist, and thought
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: to myself, Ah, happiness courts the light, so we deem
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: the world is gay, but misery hides aloof so we
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: deem that misery there is none these sad fancyings. Shimmer
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: is doubtless of a sick and silly brain. Led on
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: to other and more special thoughts concerning the eccentricities of Bartleby.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: Presentiments of strange discoveries hovered round me. The scribner's pale
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: form appeared to me, laid out among uncarrying strangers in
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: its shivering winding sheet. Suddenly I was attracted by Bartleby's
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: closed desk, the key and open sight left in the lock.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: I mean no mischief, seek the gratification of no heartless curiosity,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: thought I. Besides the desk is mine, and its contents too,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: so I will make bold to look within. Everything was
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: methodically arranged, the papers smoothly placed. The pigeon holes were
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: deep and removing the files of documents. I groped into
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: their recesses. Presently I felt something there and dragged it out.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: It was an old bandana handkerchief, heavy and nodded. I
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: opened it and saw it was a savings bank. I
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: now recalled all the quiet mysteries which I had noted
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: in the man. I remembered that he never spoke, but
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: to answer that though at intervals he had considerable time
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: to himself, yet I had never seen him reading. No,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: not even a newspaper, that for long periods, he would say,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: stand looking out at his pale window behind the screen
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: upon the dead brick wall. I was quite sure he
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: never visited any refectory or eating house, while his pale
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: face clearly indicated that he never drank beer like turkey,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: or tea and coffee, even like other men, that he
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: never went anywhere, in particular that I could learn, never
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: went out for a walk, unless indeed that was the
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: case at present, That he had declined telling who he was,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: or whence he came, or whether he had any relatives
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: in the world. That though so thin and pale, he
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: never complained of ill health. And more than all, I
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: remembered a certain unconscious air of pallid, how shall I
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: call it of pallid haughtiness say, or rather an austere
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: reserve about him, which had positively awed me into my
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: tame compliance with his eccentricities, when I had feared to
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: ask him to do the slightest incidental thing for me,
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: even though I might know from his long continued motionlessness
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: that behind his screen he must be standing in one
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: of those dead wall reveries of his revolving all these
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: things and coupling them with the recently discovered fact that
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: he made my office his constant, abiding place and home,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: and not forgetful of his morbid moodiness. Revolving all these things,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: a prudential feeling began to steal over me. My first
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: emotions had been those of pure melancholy and sincere as pity.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: But just in proportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: and grew to my imagination, did that same melancholy emerge
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: into fear, that pity into repulsion. So true it is,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: and so terrible too, that up to a certain point,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: But in certain special cases, beyond that point, it does not.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: They heir, who would assert that invariably this is owing
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: to the inherent selfishness of the human heart. It rather
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: ill to a sensitive being. Pity is not seldom pain,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: and when at last it is perceived that such pity
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: rid of it. What I saw that morning persuaded me
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: that the Scrivener was the victim of innate and incurable disorder.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: I might give alms to his body, but his body
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: did not pain him. It was his soul that suffered,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: and his soul I could not reach. I did not
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: accomplish the purpose of going to Trinity Church that morning.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Somehow the things I had seen disqualified me for the
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: time from church going. I walked homeward thinking what I
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: would do with Bartleby. Finally I resolved upon this. I
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: would put certain calm questions to him the next morning,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: touching his history, et cetera. And if he declined to
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: answer them openly and unreservedly, and I supposed he would
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: prefer not, then to give him a twenty dollar bill
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: over and above whatever I might owe him, and tell
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: him his services were no longer required, but that if
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: in any other way I could assist him, I would
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: be happy to do so, especially if he desired to
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: return to his native place, wherever that might be, I
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: would willingly help to defray the expenses. Moreover, if after
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: reaching home, he found himself at any time and want
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: of aid, a letter from him would be sure of
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: a reply. The next morning came Bartleby, said I, gently,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: calling to him behind his screen. No reply, Bartleby said I,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: in a still gentler tone. Come here. I am not
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: going to ask you to do anything you would prefer
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: not to do. I simply wish to speak to you.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Upon this, he noiselessly slid into view. Will you tell me, Bartleby,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: where you were born? I would prefer not to. Will
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: you tell me anything about yourself? I would prefer not to.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: But what reasonable objection can you have to speak to me?
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: I feel friendly towards you. He did not look at
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: me while I spoke, but kept his glance fixed upon
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: my bust of seero, which, as I then sat, was
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: directly behind me, some six inches above my head. What
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: is your answer, Bartleby, said I, after waiting a considerable
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: time for a reply, during which his countenance remained immovable.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: Only there was the faintest conceivable tremor of the white
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: attenuated mouth at present. I prefer to give no answer,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: he said, and retired into his hermitage. It was rather
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: weak in me, I confess, but his manner on this
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: occasion nettled me. Not only did there seem to lurk
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: in it a certain calm disdain but his perverseness seemed ungrateful,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: considering the undeniable good usage and indulgence he had received
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: from me. Again, I sat ruminating what I should do,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: mortified as I was at his behavior, and resolved as
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: I had been to dismiss him when I entered my offices. Nevertheless,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: I strangely felt something superstitious knocking at my heart, and
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: forbidding me to carry out my purpose, and denouncing me
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: for a villain if I dared to breathe one bitter
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: word against this forlornist of mankind. At last, familiarly, drawing
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: my chair behind his screen, I sat down and said, Bartleby,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: never mind then about revealing your history. But let me
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: entreat you as a friend to comply, as far as
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: may be, with usages of this office. Say now you
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: will help to examine papers tomorrow or next day. In short,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: say now that in a day or two you will
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: begin to be a little reasonable. Say so, Bartleby, at
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: was his mildly cadaverous reply. Just then the folding doors
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: opened and nippers approached. He seemed suffering from an unusually
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: bad night's rest induced by severer indigestion than common. He
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: overheard those final words of Bartleby prefer not, eh, gritted Nippers,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: I'd prefer him. If I were you, sir, addressing me,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: I'd prefer him. I'd give him preferences the stubborn mule.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: What is it, sir, pray that he prefers not to do? Now?
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: Bartleby moved not a limb, mister Nippers said, I, I
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: prefer that you would withdraw for the present. Somehow, of
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: late I had got into the way of involuntarily using
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: this word prefer upon all sorts of not exactly suitable occasions.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: And I trembled to think that my contact with the
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: scrivener had already and seriously affected me in a mental way,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: and what further and deeper aberration might it not yet produce.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: This apprehension had not been without efficacy in determining me
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: to my summary means. As Nippers, looking very sour and sulky,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: was departing Turkey blandly and deferentially approached with submission, Sir
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: said he yesterday I was thinking about Bartleby here, and
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: I think that if he would but prefer to take
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: a quart of good ale every day. It would do
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: much towards mending him and enabling him to assist in
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: examining his papers. So you have got the word, too,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: said I, slightly excited with submission. What word, sir, asked Turkey,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: respectfully crowding himself into the contracted space behind the screen,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: and by so doing making me jostle the scrivener. What word, sir?
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: I would prefer to be left alone here, said Bartleby,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: as if offended at being mobbed in his privacy. That's
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: the word, Turkey said I. That's it. Oh prefer Oh, yes,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: queer word. I never use it myself. But sir, as
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: I was saying, if he would but prefer Turkey, I interrupted,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: you will please withdraw. Oh certainly, sir, if you prefer that,
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: I should. As he opened the folding door to retire
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: nippers at his desk, caught a glimpse of me and
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: asked whether I would prefer to have a certain paper
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: copied on blue paper or white. He did not in
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: the least roguishly accent the word prefer. It was plain
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: that it involuntarily rolled from his tongue. I thought to myself,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: surely I must get rid of a demented man who
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: already has in some degree he turned the tongues, if
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: not the heads of myself and clerks. But I thought
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: it prudent not to break the dismission at once. The
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: next day I noticed that Bartleby did nothing but stand
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: at his window in his dead wall reverie. Upon asking
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: him why he did not write, he said that he
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: had decided upon doing no more writing. Why how now?
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: What next? Exclaimed? I do no more writing, no more?
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: And what is the reason? Do you not see the
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: reason for yourself? He indifferently replied. I looked steadfastly at him,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: and perceived that his eyes looked dull and glazed. Instantly,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: it occurred to me that his unexampled diligence in copying
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: by his dim window for the first few weeks of
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: his stay with me might have temporarily impaired his vision.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: I was touched. I said something in condolence with him.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: I hinted that, of course he did wisely in abstaining
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: from writing for a while, and urged him to embrace
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: that opportunity of taking wholesome exercise in the open air. This, however,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: he did not do. A few days after this, my
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: other clerks, being absent, and being in a great hurry
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: to dispatch certain letters by the mail, I thought that,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: having nothing else earthly to do, Bartleby would surely be
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: less inflexible than usual and carry these letters to the
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: post office. But he blankly declined, So much to my inconvenience,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: I went myself still added. Days went by. Whether Bartleby's
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: eyes improved or not, I could not say. To all appearance,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: I thought they did, But when I asked him if
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: they did, he vouchsafed no answer. At all events, he
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: would do no copying. At last, in reply to my urgings,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: he informed me that he had permanently given up copying.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: What exclaimed, I suppose your eyes should get entirely well
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: better than ever before. Would you not copy? Then? I
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: have given up copying, he answered, and slid aside. He
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: remained as ever a fixture in my chamber. Nay, if
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: that were possible, he became still more of a fixture
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: than before. What was to be done? He would do
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: nothing in the office. Why should he stay there? In
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: plain fact, he had now become a millstone to me,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: not only useless as a necklace, but afflictive to bear.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: Yet I was sorry for him. I speak less than
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: truth when I say that on his own account he
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: occasioned me uneasiness. If he would but have named a
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: single relative or friend, I would instantly have written and
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: urged their taking the poor fellow away to some convenient retreat.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: But he seemed alone, absolutely alone in the universe, a
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: bit of wreck in the mid Atlantic. At length, necessities
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: connected with my business tyrannized over all other considerations decently
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: as I could. I told Bartleby that in six days
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: time he must unconditionally leave the office. I warned him
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: to take measures in the interval for procuring some other abode.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: I offered to assist him in this endeavor if he
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: himself would but take the first step towards a removal.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: And when you finally quit me, Bartleby, added, I, I
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: shall see that you go not away entirely unprovided six
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: days from this hour. Remember, at the expiration of that period,
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: I peeped behind the screen, and lo, Bartleby was there.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: I buttoned up my coat, balanced myself, advanced slowly towards him,
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: touched his shoulder, and said, the time has come you
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: must quit this place. I am sorry for you. Here
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: is money, But you must go. I would prefer not,
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: he replied, with his back still towards me. You must.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: He remained silent. Now I had an unbounded confidence in
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: this man's common honesty. He had frequently restored to me
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: sixpences and shillings carelessly dropped upon the floor. For I
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: am apt to be very reckless in such shirt button affairs.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: The proceeding then, which followed will not be deemed extra ordinary.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: Bartleby said, I I owe you twelve dollars on account.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Here are thirty two the odd twenty are yours? Will
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: you take it? And I handed the bills towards him,
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: but he made no motion. I will leave them here,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: then putting them under a weight on the table, then
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: taking my hat and cane, and going to the door,
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: I tranquility turned and added, after you have removed your
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: things from these offices, Bartleby, you will of course lock
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: the door, since every one is now gone for the day,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: but you, and if you please slip your key underneath
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: the mat so that I may have it in the morning,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: I shall not see you again. So good bye to you.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: If hereafter, in your new place of abode, I can
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: be of any service to you, do not fail to
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: advise me by letter, goodbye Bartleby, and fare you well.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: But he answered not a word. Like the last column
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: of some ruined temple. He remained standing, mute and solitary
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the otherwise deserted room. As I
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: walked home in a pensive mood, my vanity got the
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: better of my pity. I could not but highly plume
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: myself on my masterly management in getting rid of Bartleby.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: Masterly I call it, and such it must appear to
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: any dispassionate thinker. The beauty of my procedure seemed to
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: consist in its perfect quietness. There was no vulgar bullying,
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: no bravado of any sort, no choleric hectoring and striding
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: to and fro across the apartment, jerking out vehement commands
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: for Bartleby to bundle himself off with his beggarly traps.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Nothing of the kind. Without loudly bidding Bartleby depart, as
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: an inferior genius might have done. I assumed the ground
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: that depart he must, and upon that assumption built all
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: I had to say. The more I thought over my procedure,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: the more, I was charmed with it. Nevertheless, next morning,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: upon awakening, I had my doubts I had somehow slept
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: off the fumes of vanity. One of the coolest and
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: wisest hours a man has is just after he awakes.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: In the morning, my proceeding seemed as sagacious as ever,
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: but only in theory how it would prove in practice
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: there was the rub. It was truly a beautiful thought
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: to have assumed Bartleby's departure, but after all that assumption
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: was simply my own, and none of Bartleby's. The great
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: point was not whether I had assumed that he would
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: quit me, but whether he would prefer so to do.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: He was more a man of preferences than assumptions. After breakfast,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: I walked downtown, arguing the probabilities, pro and con One
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: moment I thought it would prove a miserable failure, and
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: Bartleby would be found all alive at my office as usual.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: The next moment, it seemed certain that I should see
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: his chair empty, and so I kept veering about. At
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: the corner of Broadway and Canal Street, I saw quite
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: an excited group of people standing in earnest conversation I'll
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: take odds. He doesn't, said a voice as I passed,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: doesn't go done, said I put up your money. I
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: was instinctively putting my hand in my pocket to produce
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: my own when I remembered that this was an election day.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: The words I had overheard bore no reference to Bartleby,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: but to the success or non success of some candidate
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: for the mayoralty. In my intent frame of mind, I had,
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: as it were, imagined that all Broadways shared in my
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: excitement and were debating the same question with me. I
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: passed on, very thankful that the uproar of the street
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: screened my momentary absent mindedness. As I had intended, I
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: was earlier than usual. At my office door, I stood
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: listening for a moment. All was still. He must be gone.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: I tried the knob. The door was locked. Yes, my
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: procedure had worked to a charm. He indeed must be vanished.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: Yet a certain melancholy mixed with this. I was almost
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: sorry for my brilliant success. I was fumbling under the
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: door mat for the key, which Bartleby was to have
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: left there for me, when accidentally my knee knocked against
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: a panel, producing a summoning sound, and in response a
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: voice came to me from within. Not yet I am occupied.
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: It was Bartleby. I was thunderstruck. For an instant. I
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: stood like the man who pipe in mouth was killed
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: one cloudless afternoon long ago in Virginia by a summer
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: lightning at his own warm open window. He was killed
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: and remained leaning out there upon the dreamy afternoon till
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: some one touched him when he fell. Not gone, I
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: murmured at last, but again, obeying that wondrous ascendency which
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: the inscrutable scrivener had over me, and from which ascendency,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: for all my chafing I could not completely escape. I
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: slowly went downstairs and out into the street, and while
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: walking round the block, considered what I should next do
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: in this unheard of perplexity. Turn the man out by
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: an actual thrusting. I could not to drive him away
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: by calling him hard names would not do. Calling in
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: the police was an unpleasant idea, and yet permit him
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: to enjoy his cadaverous triumph over me. This too, I
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: could not think of what was to be done, or
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: if nothing could be done, Was there anything further that
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: I could assume in the matter yes, as before I
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: had prospectively assumed that Bartleby would depart, so now I
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: might retrospectively assume that departed he was. In the legitimate
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: carrying out of this assumption, I might enter my office
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: in a great hurry, and, pretending not to see Bartleby
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: at all, walk straight against him as if he were heir.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: Such a proceeding would in a singular degree, have the
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: appearance of a home thrust. It was hardly possible that
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: Bartleby could withstand such an application of the doctrine of assumptions.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: But upon second thoughts, the success of the plan seemed
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: rather dubious. I resolved to argue the matter over with
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: him again. Bartleby said I, entering the office with a
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: quietly severe expression. I am seriously displeased. I am pained, Bartleby.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: I had thought better of you. I had imagined you
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: of such a gentlemanly organizedation that in any delicate dilemma
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: a slight hint would have suffice in short an assumption.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: But it appears I am deceived, why, I added, unaffectedly,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: starting you have not even touched that money, yet, pointing
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: to it just where I had left it. The evening previous,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: He answered nothing, Will you or will you not quit me?
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: I now demanded in a sudden passion, advancing close to him.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: I would prefer not to quit you, he replied, gently,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: emphasizing the knot. What earthly right have you to stay here?
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: Do you pay any rent? Do you pay my taxes?
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: Or is this property yours? He answered nothing? Are you
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: ready to go on and write? Now? Are your eyes recovered?
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: Could you copy a small paper for me this morning,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: or help examine a few lines, or step round to
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: the post office? In a word, will you do anything
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: at all to give a coloring to your refusal to
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: depart the premises? He silently retired into his hermitage. I
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: was now in such a state of nervous resentment that
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: I thought it but prudent to check myself at present
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: from further demonstrations. Bartleby and I were alone. I remembered
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: the tragedy of the unfortunate Atoms and the still more
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: unfortunate Cult in the solitary office of the latter, and
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: how poor Cult, being dreadfully incensed by Adams and imprudently
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: permitting himself to get wildly excited, was at unawares hurried
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: into his fatal act, an act which certainly no man
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: could possibly deplore more than the actor himself. Often, it
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: had occurred to me in my ponderings upon the subject,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: that had that altercation taken place in the public street
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: or at a private residence, it would not have terminated
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: as it did. It was the circumstance of being alone
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: in a solitary office upstairs of a building entirely unhallowed
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: by humanizing domestic associations, an uncarpeted office, doubtless of a dusty,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: haggard sort of appearance. This, it must have been, which
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: greatly helped to enhance the ear irritable desperation of the
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: hapless cult. But when this old atom of resentment rose
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: in me and tempted me concerning Bartleby, I grappled him
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: and threw him. How why simply by recalling the divine
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: injunction a new commandment, give I unto you, that ye
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: love one another. Yes, this it was that saved me.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: Aside from higher considerations, charity often operates as a vastly
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: wise and prudent principle, a great safeguard to its possessor.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: Men have committed murder for jealousy's sake, and anger's sake,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: and hatred's sake, and selfishness sake, and spiritual pride sake.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: But no man that I ever heard of, ever committed
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: a diabolical murder for sweet charity's sake mere self interest. Then,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: if no better motive can be enlisted, should, especially with
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: high tempered men, prompt all beings to charity and philanthropy
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: at any rate. Upon the occasion in question, I strove
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: to drown my exasperated fees feelings towards the scrivener by
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: benevolently construing his conduct poor fellow. Poor fellow, thought I,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: he don't mean anything, and besides, he has seen hard
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: times and ought to be indulged. I endeavored also immediately
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: to occupy myself and at the same time to comfort
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: my despondency. I tried to fancy that, in the course
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: of the morning, at such time as might prove agreeable
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: to him, bartleby, of his own free accord, what emerged
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: from his hermitage and take up some decided line of
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: march in the direction of the door. But no. Half
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: past twelve o'clock came. Turkey began to glow in the face,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: overturn his inkstand, and become generally obstreperous. Nippers abated down
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: into quietude and courtesy. Ginger Nut munched his noon apple,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: and Bartleby remained standing at his window in one of
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: his profoundest dead wall reveries. Will it be credited? Ought
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: I to acknowledge it. That afternoon I left the office
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: without saying one further word to end of section three
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: Section four. Some days now passed, during which, at leisure
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: intervals I looked a little into Edwards on the will
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: and priestly on necessity. Under the circumstances, those books induced
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: a salutary feeling. Gradually I slid into the persuasion that
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: these troubles of mine, touching the scrivener, had been all
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: predestinated from eternity, and Bartleby was billeted upon me for
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: some mysterious purpose of an all wise providence, which it
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: was not for a mere mortal like me to fathom. Yes, Bartleby,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: stay there behind your screen, thought I I shall persecute
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: you no more. You are harmless and noiseless as any
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: of these old chairs. In short, I never feel so
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: private as when I know you are here at last,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: I see it, I feel it. I penetrate to the
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: predestinated purpose of my life. I am content. Others may
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: have loftier parts to enact. But my mission in this world, Bartleby,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: is to furnish you with office room for such period
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: as you may see fit to remain. I believe that
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: this wise and blessed frame of mind would have continued
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: with me had it not been for the unsolicited and
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: uncharitable remarks obtruded upon me by my professional friends who
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: visited the rooms. But thus it often is that the
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: constant friction of illiberal minds wears out at last the
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: best resolves of the more generous. Though to be sure,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: when I reflected upon it, it was not strange that
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: people entering my office should be struck by the peculiar
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: aspect of the unaccountable Bartleby, and so be tempted to
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: throw out some sinister observations concerning him. Sometimes an attorney
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: having business with me, and calling at my office, and
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: finding no one but the scrivener there, would undertake to
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: obtain some sort of precise information from him touching my whereabouts,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: but without heeding his idle Toalpes Bartleby would remain standing
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: immovable in the middle of the room. So after contemplating
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: him in that position for a time, the attorney would
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: depart no wiser than he came. Also, when a reference
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: was going on and the room full of lawyers and
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: witnesses and business was driving fast, some deeply occupied legal
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: gentleman present, seeing Bartleby, wholly unemployed, would request him to
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: run round to his the legal gentleman's office, and fetch
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: some papers for him. Thereupon Bartleby would tranquility decline, and
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: yet remain idle as before. Then the lawyer would give
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: a great stare and turn to me, And what could
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: I say? At last I was made aware that all
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: through the circle of my professional acquaintance, a whisper of
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: wonder was running round, having reference to the strange creature
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: I kept at my office. This worried me very much,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: and as the idea came upon me of his possibly
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: turning out a long lived man and keep occupying my
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: chambers and denying my authority, and perplexing my visitors, and
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: scandalizing my professional reputation, and casting a general gloom over
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: the premises. Keeping soul and body together to the last
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: upon his savings. For doubtless he spent but half a
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: dime a day, and in the end perhaps outlive me,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: and claimed possession of my office by right of his
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: perpetual occupancy. As all these dark anticipations crowded upon me
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: more and more, and my friends continually intruded their relentless
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: remarks upon the apparition in my room, a great change
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: was wrought in me. I resolved to gather all my
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: faculties together and forever rid me of this intolerable incubus
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: ere revolving any complicated project, however, adapted to this end,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: I first simply suggested to bartleby the propriety of his
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: permanent departure. In a calm and serious tone, I commended
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: the idea to his careful and mature consideration. But having
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: taken three days to meditate upon it, he apprized me
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: that his original determination remained the same, In short, that
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: he still preferred to abide with me. What shall I do?
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: I now said to myself, buttoning up my coat to
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: the last button. What shall I do? What ought I
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: to do? What does conscience say I should do with
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: this man? Or rather ghost rid myself of him? I
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: must go, he shall, But how you will not thrust him,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: the poor, pale, passive mortal. You will not thrust such
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: a helpless creature out of your door. You will not
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: dishonor yourself by such cruelty. No I will not. I
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: cannot do that. Rather, would I let him live and
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: die here, and then mason up his remains in the wall.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: What then will you do? For all your coaxing, he
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: will not budge, bribes. He leaves under your own paper
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: weight on your table. In short, it is quite plain
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: that he prefers to cling to you. Then something severe,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: something unusual, must be done. What surely you will not
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: have him collared by a constable and commit his innocent
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: pallor to the common jail? And upon what ground could
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: you procure such a thing to be done? A vagrant?
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: Is he? What? He a vagrant? A wanderer who refuses
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: to budge? It is because he will not be a vagrant.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: Then that you seek to count him as a vagrant,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: That is too absurd. No visible means of support? There
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: I have him wrong again, For indubitably he does support himself.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: And that is the only unanswerable proof that any man
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: can show of his possessing the means so to do
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: no more. Then, since he will not quit me, I
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: must quit him. I will change my offices. I will
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: move elsewhere, and give him fair notice that if I
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: find him on my new premises, I will then proceed
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: against him as a common trespasser, acting accordingly. Next day,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: I thus addressed him, I find these chambers too far
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: from the city Hall. The air is unwholesome. In a word,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: I propose to remove my offices next week, and shall
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: no longer require your services. I tell you this now
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: in order that you may seek another place. He made
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: no reply, and nothing more was said. On the appointed day,
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: I engaged carts and men proceeded to my chambers, and,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: having but little furniture, everything was removed in a few hours.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: Throughout the scrivener remained standing behind the screen which I
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: directed to be removed. The last thing. It was withdrawn
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: and being folded up like a huge folio, left him
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: the motionless occupant of a naked room. I stood in
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: the entry watching him a moment while something from within
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: me upbraided me. I re entered with my hand in
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: my pocket and and my heart in my mouth. Good Bye. Bartleby,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: I am going good bye, and God some way bless you.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: And take that slipping something in his hand, but it
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: dropped upon the floor, and then, strange to say, I
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: tore myself from him, whom I had so longed to
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: be rid of. Established in my new quarters, for a
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: day or two, I kept the door locked and started
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: at every footfall in the passages. When I returned to
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: my rooms after any little absence, I would pause at
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: the threshold for an instant and attentively listen, ere applying
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: my key. But these fears were needless. Bartleby never came
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: nigh me. I thought all was going well when a
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: perturbed looking stranger visited me, inquiring whether I was the
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: person who had recently occupied rooms at number Wall Street
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: full of forebodings. I replied that I was. Then, sir,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: said the stranger, who proved a lawyer. You are responsible
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: for the man you left there. He refuses to do
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: any copying, He refuses to do anything he says he
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: prefers not to, and he refuses to quit the premises.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: I am very sorry, sir, said I, with assumed tranquility,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: but an inward tremor. But really the man you allude
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: to is nothing to me. He is no relation or
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: apprentice of mine that you should hold me responsible for him.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: In Mercy's name. Who is he? I certainly cannot inform you.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: I know nothing about him. Formerly I employed him as
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: a copyist, but he has done nothing for me. Now
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: for some time past, I shall settle him. Then, good morning, sir.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: Several days passed and I heard nothing more. And though
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: I often felt a charitable prompting to call at the
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: place and see poor Bartleby, yet a certain squeamishness of
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: I know not what withheld me. All is over with
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: him by this time, thought I at last, when through
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: another week no further intelligence reached me. But coming to
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: my room the day after, I found several persons waiting
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: at my door in a high state of nervous excitement.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: That's the man, here he comes, cried the foremost one,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: whom I recognized as the lawyer who had previously called
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: upon me alone. You must take him away, sir. At
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: once cried a portly person among them, advancing upon me,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: and whom I knew to be the landlord of Number
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: Wall Street. These gentlemen, my tenants, cannot stand it any longer.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: Mister B, pointing to the lawyer, has turned him out
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: of his room, and he now persists in haunting the building,
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: generally sitting upon the banisters of the stairs by day
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: and sleeping in the entry by night. Everybody is concerned,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: clients are leaving the offices, some fears are entertained of
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: a mob. Something you must do, and that without delay.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: Aghast at this, torrent I fell back before it, and
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: would fain have locked myself in my new quarters in Vain.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: I persisted that Bartleby was nothing to me, no more
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: than to any one else in Vain. I was the
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: last person known to have anything to do with him,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: and they held me to the terrible account. Fearful then
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: of being exposed in the papers, as one person present
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: obscurely threatened, I considered the matter, and at length said
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: that if the lawyer would give me a confidential interview
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: with the scrivener in his the lawyer's own room, I
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: would that afternoon strive my best to rid them of
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: the nuisance they complained of. Going upstairs to my old haunt,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: there was Bartleby, silently sitting upon the banister at the landing.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: What are you doing here, Bartleby said, I sitting upon
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: the banister. He mildly replied. I motioned him into the
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: lawyer's room, who then left us. Bartleby said, I are
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: you aware that you are the cause of great tribulation
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: to me by persisting in occupying the entry after being
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: dismissed from the office. No answer. Now, one of two
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: things must take place. Either you must do something or
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: something must be done to you. Now, what sort of
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: business would you like to engage in? Would you like
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: to re engage in copying for some one? No, I
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: would prefer not to make any change. Would you like
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: a clerkship in a dry goods store? There is too
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: much confinement about that. No, I would not like clerkship,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: But I am not particular. Too much confinement, I cried,
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: Why you keep yourself confined all the time. I would
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: prefer not to take a clerkship, he rejoined, as if
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: to settle that little item at once. How would a
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: bartender's business suit you? There is no trying of the
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: eye sight in that. I would not like it at all, though,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: as I said before, I am not particular. His unwonted
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: wordiness inspirited me. I returned to the charge. Well, then,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: would you like to travel through the country collecting bills
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: for the merchants that would improve your health? No, I
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: would prefer to be doing something else. How then, would
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: going as a companion to Europe to entertain some young
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: gentleman with your conversation? How would that suit you? Not
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: at all? It does not strike me that there is
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: anything definite about that. I like to be stationary, but
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: I am not particular stationary. You shall be, then, I cried, now,
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: losing all patience, and for the first time in all
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: my exasperating connection with him, fairly flying into a passion.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: If you do not go away from these premises before night,
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: I shall feel bound. Indeed, I am bound to to
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: to quit the premises myself, I rather absurdly concluded, knowing
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: not with what possible threat to try to frighten his
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: immobility into compliance. Despairing of all further efforts, I was
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: precipitately leaving him. When a final thought occurred to me,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: one which had not been wholly unindulged before Partleby, said I,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: in the kindest tone I could assume, under such exciting circumstances,
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: will you go home with me? Now not to my office,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: but my dwelling, and remain there till we can conclude
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: upon some convenient arrangement for you at our leisure. Come
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: let us start now right away. No, at present, I
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: would prefer not to make any change at all. I
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: answered nothing, but, effectually, dodging every one by the suddenness
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: and rapidity of my flight, rushed from the building, ran
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: up Wall Street towards Broadway, and, jumping into the first omnibus,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: was soon removed from pursuit. As soon as tranquility returned,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: I distinctly perceived that I had now done all that
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: I possibly could, both in respect to the demands of
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: the landlord and his tenants, and with regard to my
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: own desire and sense of duty to benefit Bartleby and
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: shield him from rude persecution. I now strove to be
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: entirely care free and quiescent, and my conscience justified me
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: in the attempt, though indeed it was not so successful
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: as I could have wished. So fearful was I of
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: being again hunted out by the incensed landlord and his
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: exasperated tenants, that surrendering my business to Nippers for a
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: few days, I drove about the upper part of the
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: town and through the suburbs in my rockaway, crossed over
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: to Jersey City and Hoboken, and paid fugitive visits to
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: Manhattanville and Astoria. In fact, I almost lived in my
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: rockaway for the time. When again I entered my office,
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: lo a note from the landlord lay upon the desk.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: I opened it with trembling hands. It informed me that
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: the rider had sent to the police and had Bartleby
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: removed to the tombs as a vagrant. Moreover, since I
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: knew more about him than any one else, he wished
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: me to appear at that place and make a suitable
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: statement of the facts. These tidings had a conflicting effect
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: upon me. At first I was indignant, but at last
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: almost approved. The Landlord's energetic summary disposition had led him
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: to adopt a procedure which I do not think I
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: would have decided upon myself, And yet as a last
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: resort under such peculiar circumstances, it seemed the only plan.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: As I afterwards learned, the poor Scrivener, when told that
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: he must be conducted to the tombs, offered not the
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: slightest obstacle, but in his pale unmoving way, silently acquiesced.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: Some of the compassionate and curious bystanders joined the party, and,
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: headed by one of the constables, arm in arm with Bartleby,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: the silent procession filed its way through all the noise
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: and heat and joy of the roaring thoroughfares. At noon
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: the same day I received the note, I went to
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: the tombs, or, to speak more properly, the halls of justice,
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: seeking the right officer. I stated the purpose of my call,
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: and was informed that the individual I described was indeed
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: within I then assured the functionary that Bartleby was a
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: perfectly honest man, and greatly to be compassionated, however unaccountably eccentric.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: I narrated all I knew, and closed by suggesting the
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: idea of letting him remain in as indulgent confinement as
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: possible till something less harsh might be done, though indeed
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: I hardly knew what at all events, if nothing else
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: could be decided upon, the almshouse must receive him. I
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: then begged to have an interview. Being under no disgraceful charge,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: and quite serene and harmless in all his ways, they
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: had permitted him freely to wander about the prison, and
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: especially in the enclosed grass platted yard thereof, And so
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: I found him there, standing all alone in the quietest
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: of the yards, his face towards a high wall, while
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: all around from the narrow slits of the jail windows,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: I thought I saw peering out upon him the eyes
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: of murderers and thieves. Bartleby, I know you, he said,
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: without looking round, And I want nothing to say to you.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: It was not I that brought you here, Bartleby, said, I,
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: keenly pained at his implied suspicion. And to you, this
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: should not be so vile a place. Nothing reproachful attaches
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: to you by being here. And see it is not
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: so sad a place as one might think. Look there
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: is the sky, and here is the grass. I know
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: where I am, he replied, but would say nothing more,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: and so I left him. As I entered the corridor again,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: a broad, meat like man in an apron accosted me, and,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: jerking his thumb over his shoulders, said, is that your friend? Yes?
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: Does he want to starve? If he does, let him
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: live on the prison fare, that's all? Who are you?
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: Asked I, not knowing what to make of such an
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: unofficially speaking person in such a place. I I am
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: the grub man. Such gentlemen as have friends here, hire
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: me to provide them with something good to eat? Is
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: this so? Said I, turning to the turnkey. He said
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: it was well, then said I, slipping some silver into
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: the grub Man's hands, for so they called him. I
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: want you to give particular attention to my friend there.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: Let him have the best dinner you can get, and
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: you must be as polite to him as possible. Introduce me,
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: will you, said the grub man, looking at me with
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: an expression which seemed to say he was all impatience
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: for an opportunity to give a specimen of his breeding.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: Thinking it would prove of benefit to the scrivener, I acquiesced,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: and asking the grub man his name, went up with
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: him to Bartleby. Bartleby. This is mister Cutlet's you will
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: find him very useful to you, your sarvant sir, your servant,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: said the grub man, making a low salutation behind his
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: apron Hope you find it pleasant here, sir, spacious, grounds
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: cool apart, sir, hope you'll stay with us some time.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: Try to make it agreeable, may missus Cutlet's and I
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: have the pleasure of your company to dinner, sir, in
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: missus Cutlet's private room. I prefer not to dine to day,
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: said Bartleby turning away. It would disagree with me. I
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: am unused to dinners, so saying, he slowly moved to
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: the other side of the enclosure and took up a
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: position fronting the dead wall. How's this, said the grub man,
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: addressing me with a stare of astonishment. He's odd, ain't he?
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: I think he is a little deranged, said I, sadly deranged? Deranged?
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: Is it well? Now? Upon my word? I thought that
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: friend of Yorn was a gentleman forger. They are always
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: pale and genteel, like them forgers. I can't pity him,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: can't help it, sir, did you know Monroe? Edwards, he
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: added touchingly and paused, then, laying his hand pityingly on
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: my shoulder, sighed he died of consumption at sing sing.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: So you weren't acquainted with Monroe? No, I was never
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: socially acquainted with any forgers. But I cannot stop longer.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: Look to my friend yonder. You will not lose by it,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: I will see you again. Some few days after this,
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: I again obtained admission to the tombs and went through
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: the corridors in quest of Bartleby, but without finding him.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: I saw him coming from his cell not long ago,
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: said a turnkey. Maybe he's gone to loiter in the yards.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: So I went in that direction. Are you looking for
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: the silent man? Said another turnkey, passing me yonder, He
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: lies sleeping in the yard. There tis not twenty minutes
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: since I saw him lie down. The yard was entirely quiet.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: It was not accessible to the common prisoners. The surrounding
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: walls of amazing thickness kept off all sounds behind them.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: The Egyptian character of the masonry weighed upon me with
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: its gloom. But a soft, imprisoned turf grew underfoot the
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: heart of the eternal pyramids, wherein by some strange magic,
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: through the clefts, grass seed dropped by birds had sprung strangely.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: Huddled at the base of the wall, his knees drawn
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: up and lying on his side, his head touching the
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: cold stones. I saw the wasted Bartleby, but nothing stirred.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: I paused, then went close up to him, stooped over,
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: and saw that his dim eyes were open. Otherwise he
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: seemed profoundly sleeping. Something prompted me to touch him. I
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: felt his hand, when a tingling shiver ran up my
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: arm and down my spine to my feet. The round
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: face of the grub man peered upon me. Now his
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: dinner is ready. Won't he dine to day? Either? Or
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: does he live without dining? Lives without dining, said I,
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: and closed his eyes. Eh, he's asleep. Any with kings
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: and counselors, murmured I, there would seem little need for
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: proceeding further in this history. Imagination will readily supply the
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: meager recital of poor Bartleby's interment. But ere parting with
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: the reader, let me say that if this little narrative
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: has sufficiently interested him to awaken curiosity as to who
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: Bartleby was and what manner of life he led prior
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: to the present narrators making his acquaintance, I can only
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: reply that in such curiosity I fully share, but am
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: wholly unable to gratify it. Yet here I hardly know
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: whether I should divulge. One little item of rumor which
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: came to my ear a few months after the scrivener's decease,
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: upon what basis it rested I could never ascertain, and
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: hence how true it is I cannot now tell. But
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: inasmuch as this vague report has not been without certain
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: strange suggestive interest to me, however sad it may prove
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: the same with some others, and so I will briefly
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: mention it the report or it was this, that Bartleby
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: had been a subordinate clerk in the dead letter office
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: at Washington, from which he had been suddenly removed by
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: a change in the administration. When I think over this rumour,
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: I cannot adequately express the emotions which seize me dead letters.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: Does it not sound like dead men conceive a man,
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: by nature and misfortune, prone to a pallid hopelessness. Can
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: of continually handling these dead letters and assorting them for
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: the flames, For by the cartload they are annually burned.
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: Sometimes from out the folded paper, the pale clerk takes
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: a ring the finger. It was meant for, perhaps molders
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: in the grave, A banknote sent in swiftest charity, he
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: whom it would relieve, nor eats, nor hungers any more.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: Pardon for those who died despairing hope, for those who
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: died unhoping good tidings for those who died stifled by
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: unrelieved calamities on errands of life, These letters speed to death,
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: AH Bartleby, AH Humanity, The End