- description
- # Bartleby's arrival and initial employment
## Overview
This segment (lines 260-316) is extracted from the short story [Bartleby, The Scrivener](arke:01KG8AJ8SS2R5YVRHT1BCDZZNP) by Herman Melville. It describes the narrator's hiring of Bartleby and the initial period of his employment as a scrivener. The segment is part of the [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW) collection.
## Context
The segment is extracted from the text file [bartleby_the_scrivener.txt](arke:01KG89J1CRGPEZ66W67EZPAMPE). It follows the segment [Introduction of narrator and office setup](arke:01KG8AJM8KVGJNXKQ133EA2YPV), which describes the narrator's growing business and need for additional help. This segment is followed by [First refusal and narrator's reaction](arke:01KG8AJM8KV3JQ73R05WS1QXX3), which details Bartleby's first instance of refusing to perform a task.
## Contents
This segment details Bartleby's arrival at the narrator's office and his subsequent hiring. It describes Bartleby as a "motionless young man" with a "pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn" appearance. The narrator hires Bartleby, hoping his sedate demeanor will positively influence the other scriveners, Turkey and Nippers. The narrator describes the layout of his office, divided into two parts by ground glass folding doors, and explains that he assigns Bartleby a desk near a window with no view, placing a green screen to isolate him visually but not aurally. Initially, Bartleby performs an "extraordinary quantity of writing" but does so silently, palely, and mechanically. The segment also describes the process of scriveners verifying the accuracy of copies and the narrator's intention to utilize Bartleby for this task.
- description_generated_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:06.837Z
- description_model
- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- Bartleby's arrival and initial employment
- end_line
- 316
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:37.562Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 260
- text
- must have additional help. In answer to my advertisement, a motionless
young man one morning, stood upon my office threshold, the door being
open, for it was summer. I can see that figure now—pallidly neat,
pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn! It was Bartleby.
After a few words touching his qualifications, I engaged him, glad to
have among my corps of copyists a man of so singularly sedate an
aspect, which I thought might operate beneficially upon the flighty
temper of Turkey, and the fiery one of Nippers.
I should have stated before that ground glass folding-doors divided my
premises into two parts, one of which was occupied by my scriveners,
the other by myself. According to my humor I threw open these doors, or
closed them. I resolved to assign Bartleby a corner by the
folding-doors, but on my side of them, so as to have this quiet man
within easy call, in case any trifling thing was to be done. I placed
his desk close up to a small side-window in that part of the room, a
window which originally had afforded a lateral view of certain grimy
back-yards and bricks, but which, owing to subsequent erections,
commanded at present no view at all, though it gave some light. Within
three feet of the panes was a wall, and the light came down from far
above, between two lofty buildings, as from a very small opening in a
dome. Still further to a satisfactory arrangement, I procured a high
green folding screen, which might entirely isolate Bartleby from my
sight, though not remove him from my voice. And thus, in a manner,
privacy and society were conjoined.
At first Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As if long
famishing for something to copy, he seemed to gorge himself on my
documents. There was no pause for digestion. He ran a day and night
line, copying by sun-light and by candle-light. I should have been
quite delighted with his application, had he been cheerfully
industrious. But he wrote on silently, palely, mechanically.
It is, of course, an indispensable part of a scrivener’s business to
verify the accuracy of his copy, word by word. Where there are two or
more scriveners in an office, they assist each other in this
examination, one reading from the copy, the other holding the original.
It is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair. I can readily
imagine that to some sanguine temperaments it would be altogether
intolerable. For example, I cannot credit that the mettlesome poet
Byron would have contentedly sat down with Bartleby to examine a law
document of, say five hundred pages, closely written in a crimpy hand.
Now and then, in the haste of business, it had been my habit to assist
in comparing some brief document myself, calling Turkey or Nippers for
this purpose. One object I had in placing Bartleby so handy to me
behind the screen, was to avail myself of his services on such trivial
occasions. It was on the third day, I think, of his being with me, and
before any necessity had arisen for having his own writing examined,
that, being much hurried to complete a small affair I had in hand, I
abruptly called to Bartleby. In my haste and natural expectancy of
instant compliance, I sat with my head bent over the original on my
desk, and my right hand sideways, and somewhat nervously extended with
the copy, so that immediately upon emerging from his retreat, Bartleby
might snatch it and proceed to business without the least delay.
- title
- Bartleby's arrival and initial employment