- description
- # Discovery of Bartleby's Savings and Recalled Eccentricities
## Overview - What this is (type, form, dates, scope)
This is a segment of text extracted from the short story "[Bartleby, The Scrivener](arke:01KG6YFY3GPNBP5AAFESQKDTDR)" by Herman Melville. The segment, labeled "Discovery of Bartleby's Savings and Recalled Eccentricities," spans lines 696-727 of the source text file, "[bartleby_the_scrivener.txt](arke:01KG6YDD8YHX9PCQE3NTAG8XF1)". It was extracted on January 30, 2026, by the structure-extraction-lambda. The segment is part of the larger "Melville" collection ([arke:01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF]).
## Context - Background and provenance from related entities
This segment follows "[Narrator's Melancholy and Presentiments](arke:01KG6YGBMBFJA05S0A0C1XGZBX)" and precedes "[Narrator's Fear and Resolution to Act](arke:01KG6YGBMB2R54577TW6EMAKTN)" within the short story. The text is part of a larger work contained within the "Melville" collection. The source file, "bartleby_the_scrivener.txt," was uploaded on January 30, 2026.
## Contents - What it contains, key subjects and details
The segment describes the narrator's discovery of Bartleby's savings bank, a bandanna handkerchief containing savings. This discovery prompts the narrator to recall Bartleby's peculiar habits and eccentricities, including his silence, lack of social interaction, and overall mysterious nature. The narrator reflects on Bartleby's pallid appearance and "austere reserve," which had previously intimidated him.
- description_generated_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:52.034Z
- description_model
- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- Discovery of Bartleby's Savings and Recalled Eccentricities
- end_line
- 727
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:25.130Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 696
- text
- 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.
- title
- Discovery of Bartleby's Savings and Recalled Eccentricities