- description
- # Narrator's Decision to Move Offices to Escape Bartleby
## Overview
This section, titled "Narrator's decision to move offices to escape Bartleby," is a segment of text extracted from the file [the_piazza_tales.txt](arke:01KG89J1F4D8P9BBX9AMGZ7TX7). It is part of the chapter titled "[Bartleby](arke:01KG8AJK1PKEBJJCANV911N8JS)" within the larger collection "[Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW)". This section details the narrator's internal struggle and eventual decision to relocate his offices as a means of distancing himself from the enigmatic character, Bartleby.
## Context
This text is situated within the narrative of Herman Melville's short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener." The narrator, increasingly frustrated by Bartleby's passive resistance and refusal to leave his employment, contemplates various methods of eviction. Having exhausted options such as direct requests and the consideration of legal avenues, the narrator concludes that the only viable solution is to physically remove himself and his business from Bartleby's presence. This section follows the narrator's contemplation of his predicament and precedes the section detailing the actual move and his subsequent interactions with Bartleby in the new location.
## Contents
The text describes the narrator's attempts to persuade Bartleby to leave, which are met with Bartleby's persistent preference to "abide with me." The narrator grapples with the moral implications of forcibly removing Bartleby, considering and dismissing options such as involving constables or jails. Ultimately, he resolves to move his offices, intending to treat Bartleby as a trespasser if he follows him to the new premises. The section highlights the narrator's growing desperation and his shift from trying to remove Bartleby to removing himself.
- description_generated_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:54.558Z
- description_model
- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- Narrator's Decision to Move Offices to Escape Bartleby
- end_line
- 1812
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:52.603Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1780
- text
- Ere revolving any complicated project, however, adapted to this end, I
first simply suggested to Bartleby the propriety of his permanent
departure. In a calm and serious tone, I commanded the idea to his
careful and mature consideration. But, having taken three days to
meditate upon it, he apprised me, that his original determination
remained the same; in short, that he still preferred to abide with me.
What shall I do? I now said to myself, buttoning up my coat to the last
button. What shall I do? what ought I to do? what does conscience say I
_should_ do with this man, or, rather, ghost. Rid myself of him, I
must; go, he shall. But how? You will not thrust him, the poor, pale,
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.
- title
- Narrator's decision to move offices to escape Bartleby