Bartleby, the Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street
Melville, Herman, 1819-1891
English
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Below is a summary of Bartleby, the Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street
BARTLEBY, THE SCRIVENER.
A STORY OF WALL-STREET.
I am a rather elderly man. The nature of my avocations for the last
thirty years has brought me into more than ordinary contact with what
would seem an interesting and somewhat singular set of men, of whom as
yet nothing that I know of has ever been written:--I mean the
law-copyists or scriveners. I have known very many of them,
professionally and privately, and if I pleased, could relate divers
histories, at which good-natured gentlemen might smile, and sentimental
souls might weep. But I waive the biographies of all other scriveners
for a few passages in the life of Bartleby, who was a scrivener of the
strangest I ever saw or heard of. While of other law-copyists I might
write the complete life, of Bartleby nothing of that sort can be done.
I believe that no materials exist for a full and satisfactory biography
of this man. It is an irreparable loss to literature. Bartleby was one
of those beings of whom nothing is ascertainable, except from the
original sources, and in his case those are very small. What my own
astonished eyes saw of Bartleby, _that_ is all I know of him, except,
indeed, one vague report which will appear in the sequel.
Ere introducing the scrivener, as he first appeared to me, it is fit I
make some mention of myself, my _employees_, my business, my chambers,
and general surroundings; because some such description is indispensable
to an adequate understanding of the chief character about to be
presented.
Imprimis: I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with
a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best. Hence,
though I belong to a profession proverbially energetic and nervous, even
to turbulence, at times, yet nothing of that sort have I ever suffered
to invade my peace. I am one of those unambitious lawyers who never
addresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause; but in the
cool tranquility of a snug retreat, do a snug business among rich men's
bonds and mortgages and title-deeds. All who know me, consider me an
eminently _safe_ man. The late John Jacob Astor, a personage little
given to poetic enthusiasm, had no hesitation in pronouncing my first
grand point to be prudence; my next, method. I do not speak it in
vanity, but simply record the fact, that I was not unemployed in my
profession by the late John Jacob Astor; a name which, I admit, I love
to repeat, for it hath a rounded and orbicular sound to it, and rings
like unto bullion. I will freely add, that I was not insensible to the
late John Jacob Astor's good opinion.
Some time prior to the period at which this little history begins, my
avocations had been largely increased. The good old office, now extinct
in the State of New York, of a Master in Chancery, had been conferred
upon me. It was not a very arduous office, but very pleasantly
remunerative. I seldom lose my temper; much more seldom indulge in
dangerous indignation at wrongs and outrages; but I must be permitted to
be rash here and declare, that I consider the sudden and violent
abrogation of the office of Master in Chancery, by the new Constitution,
as a--premature act; inasmuch as I had counted upon a life-lease of the
profits, whereas I only received those of a few short years. But this
is by the way.
My chambers were up stairs at No.--Wall-street. At one end they looked
upon the white wall of the interior of a spacious sky-light shaft,
penetrating the building from top to bottom. This view might have been
considered rather tame than otherwise, deficient in what landscape
painters call "life." But if so, the view from the other end of my
chambers offered, at least, a contrast, if nothing more. In that
direction my windows commanded an unobstructed view of a lofty brick
wall, black by age and everlasting shade; which wall required no
spy-glass to bring out its lurking beauties, but for the benefit of all
near-sighted spectators, was pushed up to within ten feet of my window
panes. Owing to the great height of the surrounding buildings, and my
chambers being on the second floor, the interval between this wall and
mine not a little resembled a huge square cistern.
At the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby, I had two persons
as copyists in my employment, and a promising lad as an office-boy.
First, Turkey; second, Nippers; third, Ginger Nut. These may seem
names, the like of which are not usually found in the Directory. In
truth they were nicknames, mutually conferred upon each other by my
three clerks, and were deemed expressive of their respective persons or
characters. Turkey was a short, pursy Englishman of about my own age,
that is, somewhere not far from sixty. In the morning, one might say,
his face was of a fine florid hue, but after twelve o'clock,
meridian--his dinner hour--it blazed like a grate full of Christmas
coals; and continued blazing--but, as it were, with a gradual wane--till
6 o'clock, P.M. or thereabouts, after which I saw no more of the
proprietor of the face, which gaining its meridian with the sun, seemed
to set with it, to rise, culminate, and decline the following day, with
the like regularity and undiminished glory. There are many singular
coincidences I have known in the course of my life, not the least among
which was the fact, that exactly when Turkey displayed his fullest beams
from his red and radiant countenance, just then, too, at that critical
moment, began the daily period when I considered his business capacities
as seriously disturbed for the remainder of the twenty-four hours. Not
that he was absolutely idle, or averse to business then; far from it.
The difficulty was, he was apt to be altogether too energetic. There
was a strange, inflamed, flurried, flighty recklessness of activity
about him. He would be incautious in dipping his pen into his inkstand.
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