- description
- # Bartleby Inside the Office
## Overview
This segment, titled "Bartleby Inside the Office," is an excerpt from the short story "Bartleby, The Scrivener." It spans lines 1010 to 1048 of the source text and was extracted on January 30, 2026.
## Context
This segment is part of the short story "[Bartleby, The Scrivener](arke:01KG8AJ8SS2R5YVRHT1BCDZZNP)," which was extracted from the file "[bartleby_the_scrivener.txt](arke:01KG89J1CRGPEZ66W67EZPAMPE)." The story itself is included within the larger collection "[Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW)." This segment follows "[Narrator's Reflections on His Strategy](arke:01KG8AJNQCZH7EG33YRR30ZAN1)" and precedes "[Confrontation and Refusal](arke:01KG8AJNQ533NDVCX5RDA0TXAD)."
## Contents
The segment details the narrator's attempt to enter his office, expecting Bartleby to be gone. He is surprised to hear Bartleby's voice from within, indicating he has not left. The narrator reflects on his predicament, considering various options for dealing with Bartleby's continued presence, ultimately deciding to confront him again. The text captures the narrator's internal struggle and his growing frustration with Bartleby's passive resistance.
- description_generated_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:06.617Z
- description_model
- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- Bartleby Inside the Office
- end_line
- 1048
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:37.562Z
- 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