- end_line
- 1869
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:55.409Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1791
- text
- passive mortal—you will not thrust such a helpless creature out of your
door? you will not dishonor yourself by such cruelty? No, I will not, I
cannot do that. Rather would I let him live and die here, and then
mason up his remains in the wall. What, then, will you do? For all your
coaxing, he will not budge. Bribes he leaves under your own
paper-weight on your table; in short, it is quite plain that he prefers
to cling to you.
Then something severe, something unusual must be done. What! surely you
will not have him collared by a constable, and commit his innocent
pallor to the common jail? And upon what ground could you procure such
a thing to be done?—a vagrant, is he? What! he a vagrant, a wanderer,
who refuses to budge? It is because he will _not_ be a vagrant, then,
that you seek to count him _as_ a vagrant. That is too absurd. No
visible means of support: there I have him. Wrong again: for
indubitably he _does_ support himself, and that is the only
unanswerable proof that any man can show of his possessing the means so
to do. No more, then. Since he will not quit me, I must quit him. I
will change my offices; I will move elsewhere, and give him fair
notice, that if I find him on my new premises I will then proceed
against him as a common trespasser.
Acting accordingly, next day I thus addressed him: “I find these
chambers too far from the City Hall; the air is unwholesome. In a word,
I propose to remove my offices next week, and shall no longer require
your services. I tell you this now, in order that you may seek another
place.”
He made no reply, and nothing more was said.
On the appointed day I engaged carts and men, proceeded to my chambers,
and, having but little furniture, everything was removed in a few
hours. Throughout, the scrivener remained standing behind the screen,
which I directed to be removed the last thing. It was withdrawn; and,
being folded up like a huge folio, left him the motionless occupant of
a naked room. I stood in the entry watching him a moment, while
something from within me upbraided me.
I re-entered, with my hand in my pocket—and—and my heart in my mouth.
“Good-by, Bartleby; I am going—good-by, and God some way bless you; and
take that,” slipping something in his hand. But it dropped upon the
floor, and then—strange to say—I tore myself from him whom I had so
longed to be rid of.
Established in my new quarters, for a day or two I kept the door
locked, and started at every footfall in the passages. When I returned
to my rooms, after any little absence, I would pause at the threshold
for an instant, and attentively listen, ere applying my key. But these
fears were needless. Bartleby never came nigh me.
I thought all was going well, when a perturbed-looking stranger visited
me, inquiring whether I was the person who had recently occupied rooms
at No. —— Wall street.
Full of forebodings, I replied that I was.
“Then, sir,” said the stranger, who proved a lawyer, “you are
responsible for the man you left there. He refuses to do any copying;
he refuses to do anything; he says he prefers not to; and he refuses to
quit the premises.”
“I am very sorry, sir,” said I, with assumed tranquillity, but an
inward tremor, “but, really, the man you allude to is nothing to me—he
is no relation or apprentice of mine, that you should hold me
responsible for him.”
“In mercy’s name, who is he?”
“I certainly cannot inform you. I know nothing about him. Formerly I
employed him as a copyist; but he has done nothing for me now for some
time past.”
“I shall settle him, then—good morning, sir.”
Several days passed, and I heard nothing more; and, though I often felt
a charitable prompting to call at the place and see poor Bartleby, yet
a certain squeamishness, of I know not what, withheld me.
- title
- Chunk 9