Bartleby, The Scrivener | Page 9

the door. Without hindrance I inserted my key, opened it, and entered. Bartleby was
not to be seen. I looked round anxiously, peeped behind his screen; but it was very plain
that he was gone. Upon more closely examining the place, I surmised that for an
indefinite period Bartleby must have ate, dressed, and slept in my office, and that too
without plate, mirror, or bed. The cushioned seat of a rickety old sofa in one corner bore
the faint impress of a lean, reclining form. Rolled away under his desk, I found a blanket;
under the empty grate, a blacking box and brush; on a chair, a tin basin, with soap and a
ragged towel; in a newspaper a few crumbs of ginger-nuts and a morsel of cheese. Yes,
thought I, it is evident enough that Bartleby has been making his home here, keeping
bachelor's hall all by himself. Immediately then the thought came sweeping across me,
What miserable friendlessness and loneliness are here revealed! His poverty is great; but
his solitude, how horrible! Think of it. Of a Sunday, Wall-street is deserted as Petra; and
every night of every day it is an emptiness. This building too, which of week-days hums
with industry and life, at nightfall echoes with sheer vacancy, and all through Sunday is
forlorn. And here Bartleby makes his home; sole spectator of a solitude which he has
seen all populous--a sort of innocent and transformed Marius brooding among the ruins
of Carthage!
For the first time in my life a feeling of overpowering stinging melancholy seized me.
Before, I had never experienced aught but a not-unpleasing sadness. The bond of a
common humanity now drew me irresistibly to gloom. A fraternal melancholy! For both I

and Bartleby were sons of Adam. I remembered the bright silks and sparkling faces I had
seen that day, in gala trim, swan-like sailing down the Mississippi of Broadway; and I
contrasted them with the pallid copyist, and thought to myself, Ah, happiness courts the
light, so we deem the world is gay; but misery hides aloof, so we deem that misery there
is none. These sad fancyings--chimeras, doubtless, of a sick and silly brain--led on to
other and more special thoughts, concerning the eccentricities of Bartleby. Presentiments
of strange discoveries hovered round me. The scrivener's pale form appeared to me laid
out, among uncaring strangers, in its shivering winding sheet.
Suddenly I was attracted by Bartleby's closed desk, the key in open sight left in the lock.
I mean no mischief, seek the gratification of no heartless curiosity, thought I; besides, the
desk is mine, and its contents too, so I will make bold to look within. Every thing was
methodically arranged, the papers smoothly placed. The pigeon holes were deep, and
removing the files of documents, I groped into their recesses. Presently I felt something
there, and dragged it out. It was an old bandanna handkerchief, heavy and knotted. I
opened it, and saw it was a savings' bank.
I now recalled all the quiet mysteries which I had noted in the man. I remembered that he
never spoke but to answer; that though at intervals he had considerable time to himself,
yet I had never seen him reading--no, not even a newspaper; that for long periods he
would stand looking out, at his pale window behind the screen, upon the dead brick wall;
I was quite sure he never visited any refectory or eating house; while his pale face clearly
indicated that he never drank beer like Turkey, or tea and coffee even, like other men;
that he never went any where in particular that I could learn' never went out for a walk,
unless indeed that was the case at present; that he had declined telling who he was, or
whence he came, or whether he had any relatives in the world; that though so thin and
pale, he never complained of ill health. And more than all, I remembered a certain
unconscious air of pallid--how shall I call it?--of pallid haughtiness, say, or rather an
austere reserve about him, which had positively awed me into my tame compliance with
his eccentricities, when I had feared to ask him to do the slightest incidental thing for me,
even though I might know, from his long-continued motionlessness, that behind his
screen he must be standing in one of those dead-wall reveries of his.
Revolving all these things, and coupling them with the recently discovered fact that he
made my office his constant abiding place and home, and not forgetful of his morbid
moodiness; revolving all these things, a prudential feeling began to steal over me. My
first emotions had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just in proportion
as the forlornness of Bartleby grew