- description
- # Bartleby Inside the Office
## Overview
This is a segment extracted from the short story [Bartleby, The Scrivener](arke:01KG6YFY3GPNBP5AAFESQKDTDR) by Herman Melville. It is part of the [Melville](arke:01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF) collection. The segment, titled "Bartleby Inside the Office," spans lines 1010 to 1048 of the source file, [bartleby_the_scrivener.txt](arke:01KG6YDD8YHX9PCQE3NTAG8XF1). It was extracted on January 30, 2026.
## Context
This segment is preceded by [Escalation of Bartleby's refusals and narrator's attempts to resolve the situation](arke:01KG6YGBMBKF8W8RV4TB5ZTA3M) and followed by [Confrontation and Refusal](arke:01KG6YGBMBMM95JWFXCWXJPK25) within the narrative structure of the short story.
## Contents
The segment describes the narrator's attempt to find Bartleby absent from the office, only to discover him still present and occupied. The narrator recounts his surprise at finding Bartleby still in the office, likening his shock to a man struck by lightning. The narrator then grapples with his inability to force Bartleby to leave, considering various strategies before ultimately deciding to confront him again.
- description_generated_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:52.077Z
- description_model
- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- Bartleby Inside the Office
- end_line
- 1048
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:25.130Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1010
- text
- As I had intended, I was earlier than usual at my office door. I stood
listening for a moment. All was still. He must be gone. I tried the
knob. The door was locked. Yes, my procedure had worked to a charm; he
indeed must be vanished. Yet a certain melancholy mixed with this: I
was almost sorry for my brilliant success. I was fumbling under the
door mat for the key, which Bartleby was to have left there for me,
when accidentally my knee knocked against a panel, producing a
summoning sound, and in response a voice came to me from within—“Not
yet; I am occupied.”
It was Bartleby.
I was thunderstruck. For an instant I stood like the man who, pipe in
mouth, was killed one cloudless afternoon long ago in Virginia, by a
summer lightning; at his own warm open window he was killed, and
remained leaning out there upon the dreamy afternoon, till some one
touched him, when he fell.
“Not gone!” I murmured at last. But again obeying that wondrous
ascendancy which the inscrutable scrivener had over me, and from which
ascendancy, for all my chafing, I could not completely escape, I slowly
went down stairs and out into the street, and while walking round the
block, considered what I should next do in this unheard-of perplexity.
Turn the man out by an actual thrusting I could not; to drive him away
by calling him hard names would not do; calling in the police was an
unpleasant idea; and yet, permit him to enjoy his cadaverous triumph
over me,—this too I could not think of. What was to be done? or, if
nothing could be done, was there any thing further that I could
_assume_ in the matter? Yes, as before I had prospectively assumed that
Bartleby would depart, so now I might retrospectively assume that
departed he was. In the legitimate carrying out of this assumption, I
might enter my office in a great hurry, and pretending not to see
Bartleby at all, walk straight against him as if he were air. Such a
proceeding would in a singular degree have the appearance of a
home-thrust. It was hardly possible that Bartleby could withstand such
an application of the doctrine of assumptions. But upon second thoughts
the success of the plan seemed rather dubious. I resolved to argue the
matter over with him again.
- title
- Bartleby Inside the Office