- description
- # Bartleby's arrival and initial employment / Escalation of Bartleby's refusals
## Overview
This segment, titled "Bartleby's arrival and initial employment / Escalation of Bartleby's refusals," is a section of the short story "[Bartleby, The Scrivener](arke:01KG8AJ8SS2R5YVRHT1BCDZZNP)". It details the narrator's attempts to delegate tasks to Bartleby and Bartleby's consistent refusal, marked by his phrase, "I would prefer not to." This segment spans lines 536 to 592 of the source text.
## Context
This segment is part of the larger work "[Bartleby, The Scrivener](arke:01KG8AJ8SS2R5YVRHT1BCDZZNP)", which is included in the "[Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW)" collection. The text was extracted from the file "[bartleby_the_scrivener.txt](arke:01KG89J1CRGPEZ66W67EZPAMPE)". This segment follows the section titled "[Introduction of narrator, office, and existing staff](arke:01KG8AJM8RSWPH5R13TJSKN510)" and precedes the segment "[Bartleby's increasing isolation and refusal to leave](arke:01KG8AJMWVTDHQPZMF5VKZNP5V)".
## Contents
The text describes the narrator's growing frustration with Bartleby's passive resistance. The narrator attempts to send Bartleby on errands, such as going to the Post Office or asking another employee, Nippers, to come to his office. Each time, Bartleby politely refuses with the phrase, "I would prefer not to." The narrator grapples with how to respond to this escalating defiance, ultimately deciding to go home for the day, perplexed and distressed. The segment concludes by summarizing the established understanding that Bartleby would not be sent on errands and would refuse any such requests.
- description_generated_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:05.467Z
- description_model
- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- Bartleby's arrival and initial employment / Escalation of Bartleby's refusals
- end_line
- 592
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:37.562Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 536
- text
- I closed the doors, and again advanced towards Bartleby. I felt
additional incentives tempting me to my fate. I burned to be rebelled
against again. I remembered that Bartleby never left the office.
“Bartleby,” said I, “Ginger Nut is away; just step round to the Post
Office, won’t you? (it was but a three minute walk,) and see if there
is any thing for me.”
“I would prefer not to.”
“You _will_ not?”
“I _prefer_ not.”
I staggered to my desk, and sat there in a deep study. My blind
inveteracy returned. Was there any other thing in which I could procure
myself to be ignominiously repulsed by this lean, penniless wight?—my
hired clerk? What added thing is there, perfectly reasonable, that he
will be sure to refuse to do?
“Bartleby!”
No answer.
“Bartleby,” in a louder tone.
No answer.
“Bartleby,” I roared.
Like a very ghost, agreeably to the laws of magical invocation, at the
third summons, he appeared at the entrance of his hermitage.
“Go to the next room, and tell Nippers to come to me.”
“I prefer not to,” he respectfully and slowly said, and mildly
disappeared.
“Very good, Bartleby,” said I, in a quiet sort of serenely severe
self-possessed tone, intimating the unalterable purpose of some
terrible retribution very close at hand. At the moment I half intended
something of the kind. But upon the whole, as it was drawing towards my
dinner-hour, I thought it best to put on my hat and walk home for the
day, suffering much from perplexity and distress of mind.
Shall I acknowledge it? The conclusion of this whole business was, that
it soon became a fixed fact of my chambers, that a pale young
scrivener, by the name of Bartleby, and a desk there; that he copied
for me at the usual rate of four cents a folio (one hundred words); but
he was permanently exempt from examining the work done by him, that
duty being transferred to Turkey and Nippers, one of compliment
doubtless to their superior acuteness; moreover, said Bartleby was
never on any account to be dispatched on the most trivial errand of any
sort; and that even if entreated to take upon him such a matter, it was
generally understood that he would prefer not to—in other words, that
he would refuse pointblank.
- title
- Bartleby's arrival and initial employment / Escalation of Bartleby's refusals