Character

3
CHARACTER
Reading most short stories, your rst thoughts may concern who as much as what and how. Character inevitably is a focus of your response to ction, even if the story goes out of its way to avoid creating the illusion of real people acting in a real world. Stories almost always concern human beings (there may be fables about animals, geometric shapes, owers), and we are all experts, from our own social experience, at attributing personalities to someone or something with a name and a certain role in the action. As in our assessments of plot, in our response to character we are guided by expectations based on our reading as well as our experience. A character is someone who acts, appears, or is referred to as playing a part in a literary work, usually ction or drama. Characterizationthe art and technique of representing ctional personagesdepends upon action or plot as well as narration and point of view. Many stories present characters through the medium of a narrator who is offstage, without a body or a personality, a past or a future, who is simply a voice and style and medium for the story. So it is in some of the previous stories in this volume, including The Country Husband, The Thing in the Forest, and Hills Like White Elephants. In other stories, The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe, for example, the narrator both tells us the story and plays the central role in the action. Still other stories, such as James Baldwins Sonnys Blues or Herman Melvilles Bartleby, the Scrivener, are narrated in the rst person by characters who play an important part in the action, but who serve as witnesses to the experience of the main, title characters. In still another variation, the observing narrator is present in the events in the story but can scarcely be distinguished as a separate personality. This approach is effective in William Faulkners A Rose for Emily and Stephen Cranes The Open Boat. In short, there can be various combinations of narration and characterization that guide how we perceive the story about the main characters. The most common term for the character with the The sum of tendencies to act leading male role is hero, the good guy, who opposes in a certain way. the villain, or bad guy. The leading female character T. H. HUXLEY is the heroine. Heroes and heroines are usually larger than life, stronger or better than most human beings, sometimes almost godlike. In most modern ction, however, the leading character is much more ordinary, more like the rest of us. Such a character is sometimes called an antihero, not because he opposes the hero but because he is not heroic in stature or perfection, is not so clearly or simply a good guy. An older and more neutral term than hero for the leading character, a term that does not imply either the presence or the absence of outstanding virtue (and that has the added advantage of referring equally to male and female characters), is protagonist, whose opponent is the
140
CHARACTER
141
antagonist. You might get into long and pointless arguments by calling Francis Weed (in John Cheevers The Country Husband) or Montresor (in A Cask of Amontillado) a hero, but most would agree that each is his storys protagonist. Some stories, however, leave open to debate the question of which character most deserves to be called the protagonist. In The Thing in the Forest, for example, Penny and Primrose are equally central to what happens. The major or main characters are those we see more of over a longer period of time; we learn more about them, and we think of them as more complex and, therefore, frequently more realistic than the minor characters, the gures who ll out the story. These major characters can grow and change too, sometimes even contradicting expectations. Yet while minor characters may be less prominent and less complex, they are ultimately just as indispensable to a story as major characters. A very good rst question when you set out to write about a character is, How would this story be different without this character? Minor characters often play a key role in shaping our interpretations of, and attitudes toward, the major characters, and also in precipitating the changes that major characters undergo. In Herman Melvilles Bartleby, the Scrivener, for example, ighty Turkey and ery Nippers help us, as well as the storys narrator, to recognize the uniqueness of the singularly sedate Bartleby. Like many a minor character, then, Turkey and Nippers might be described as foils to this major character in the sense that they serve as contrasts to the protagonist. Bartleby the Scrivener would not absolutely need Turkey and Nippers, but these foils to the main character help to bring out what is exceptional about him, his unchanging lack of appetite. In Sonnys Blues, to take a different example, the three sisters in black, and a brother singing spirituals on a street corner do a great deal to foster change in the narrator: helping him to appreciate in a new way the expressive power of music, these characters pave the way for the ultimate transformation of the narrators attitudes toward both Sonny and the way of life Sonny represents. Characters that change, develop, or act from conicting motives are said to be round characters; they can surprise convincingly, as one critic puts it. Simple characters that, like Turkey and Nippers, behave in unchanging or unsurprising ways are called at. But we must be careful not to let terms like at and round or major and minor turn into value judgments. Because at characters are less complex than round ones, it is easy to assume they are artistically inferior; however, we need only to think of the characters of Charles Dickens, almost all of whom are at, to realize that this is not always true. Perhaps you have found that characterization can cause the greatest disagreements about the meaning or quality of a story. Discussion can get wrapped up in whether you liked or disliked so-and-so, or whether you trusted her motives or would have done the same thing in her place. Your teacher will probably warn you not to confuse characters with real people. After all, these are imaginary beings created out of words for certain effects. Yet if a story asks us to suppose the reality of the persons in it, how can we avoid applying our real-life judgments of personality? And dont our opinions about people differ widely in real life? The very term character, when it refers not to a ctional personage but to a combination of qualities in a human being, is somewhat ambiguous. It usually has moral overtones, often favorable (a man of character); it is sometimes neutral but evaluative (character reference). Judgment about character usually involves
142 CH. 3 / CHARACTER
moral terms like good and bad and strong and weak. And individuals and cultures have held conicting views of what produces character, whether innate factors such as genes or environmental factors such as upbringing. Views differ as well as to whether character is simply a matter of fate, something determined and unchanging, or whether it can change through experience, conversion, or an act of will. Thus the representation of people in ction can provoke debates that concern the most fundamental values about human nature and varieties of personalityand no one is likely to win such debates any time soon. Nevertheless, such debates can indeed be meaningCharacter is that which ful, even if irresolvable, insofar as they are provoked reveals moral purpose, exposby the story that you have read. You can also come to ing the class of things a man chooses or avoids. more denite conclusions by focusing more closely upon the characters in a particular story and by ARISTOTLE remembering that the whole work is an imaginary worldmore or less like our ownwith its own rules. Rather than asking whether the protagonist is a good or bad person, likable or not, or true to life or not, you should consider whether the characterization is good or bad, whether it is effective in the storys own terms. Just as an actor receives a Best Actor award for playing a character well rather than for playing a good character, so an author may be recognized for good characterization even if we do not like or admire the character the author has created. Often the bad or at least morally complex characters interest and teach us the most. Although we should remember that characters exist only in the context of the story, we may learn about real people from characters in ction or learn to understand ctional characters in part from what we know about real people. Part of the pleasure of many stories is that they afford us an opportunity of seeming to inhabit another persons mind. Even our closest friends would nd it hard to convey to us the kinds of intimate details that ction can express imaginatively. Such better-than-lifelike understanding can be one It seems that the analysis of benet of interpreting character in ction. But as we character is the highest have suggested, some stories and some characters are human entertainment. And designed for different effects. Flat or opaque characliterature does it, unlike gossip, without mentioning real terization has its place, and so do stereotypes: charnames. acters based on conscious or unconscious cultural assumptions about what a persons sex, age, ethnicity, ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER nationality, occupation, marital status, and so on will tell us about that persons traits, actions, even values. Any character belongs more or less to a type. One of the chief ways we have of describing or dening is by placing the thing to be dened in a category or class and then distinguishing it from the other members of that class. Characters are almost inevitably identied by categoryby sex, age, nationality, occupation, or other characteristics. We learn that the narrator of Why I Live at the P.O. is a white woman, relatively young, who lives in a small town in Mississippi. The humor of her story may depend on readers expectations about poor, Southern, uneducated families, and some might object that those expectations are prejudiced. Yet in some stories, characterization exaggerates the conicts between and among types in order to raise issues about the way people judge and treat each other as types. Excellent ction can emerge from the surprises or conicts created by stereotypical categories. In spite of our best intentions, we function in everyday life by
CHARACTER
143
quickly assessing the people we meet, and inevitably categorizing them. It can be wonderfuland it is often a story worth telling to our friendsto discover that a person of a type you really dislike (perhaps a loser, bully, weirdo, or other objectionable type) actually has an individual character and something to say or do that you appreciate. The difference between a stereotype and observed behavior can create a round character, one who can surprise convincingly. The usual sources of such classications of people are observations of physical characteristics, which are the stock in trade of narrators of ction: well-selected, closely observed details of appearance. The physical description of Judith in Our Friend Judith makes it possible to visualize her fully, almost to recognize her as an individual:
Judith is tall, small-breasted, slender. Her light brown hair is parted in the centre and cut straight around her neck. A high straight forehead, straight nose, and full grave mouth are setting for her eyes, which are green, large and prominent. Her lids are very white, fringed with gold, and moulded close over the eyeball. . . .
At the same time, however, the very physical attributes that individualize Judith also encourage us to see her as a certain type of person and, in this case, may convince us that she does conform to our stereotype: small-breasted and slender, with straight features, a grave mouth, and a severe haircut, Judith does, indeed, look as straitlaced, prudish, and conventional as we might expect a typical English spinster to be. In most stories we not only see what characters look like, but also see what they do and hear what they say; we sometimes learn what they think, and what other people think or say about them; we often know what kind of clothes they wear, what and how much they own, treasure, or covet; we may be told about their childhood, parents, or some parts of their past. And all of this information combines to shape our sense of the characters. With the new information of later events or observations, characters may change in our perceptions as well as in their own right. When we rst read the physical description of Judith, for example, we probably assign most importance to those features that make her seem straitlaced and rigid, yet by the end of the story we may well both remember and pay more attention to the narrators remark that those features merely serve as a setting for Judiths vibrant green eyes. A wide range of modern ction is concerned with encounters between characters who initially cannot accept each other because of prejudice or cultural stereotypes. Paradoxically, in ction, as in life, the more groups a character is placed in, the more individual he or she becomes. Sonny, for example, is simultaneously a man, an African American, a blues musician, a heroin addict, a younger brother, an ex-convict, and a resident of an inner-city neighborhood. As a result, our interpretation of Sonny is shaped not only by our assumptions about each of these social groups, but also by our sense of the way that belonging to all of these groups helps to make Sonny who he is. Thus the story asks us to think about how Sonnys choice to be a blues musician relates to the fact that he is African American, about the way inner-city life has shaped Sonnys experience of being African American, and so on. What we dont know about a character can be as signicant and revealing as what we do know. What, for example, is the effect of the fact that we never learn the narrators name in either Bartleby, the Scrivener or Sonnys Blues? Or that
we know only the nicknames of Nippers and Turkey? As you consider the characterization within a story, pay close attention to the many sorts of things that you are not explicitly told about the characters. The identication of characters by their social categories is only one aspect of the way stories present imaginary people. Probably action or behavior, and thus plot, is even more important than the typecasting and appearance of characters in guiding your response. As always, it is misleading to isolate the elements of ction except for purposes of analysis. Throughout a story, plot (or incident) and character are fused. As novelist Henry James wrote,
What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character? . . . It is an incident for a woman to stand up with her hand resting on a table and look at you in a certain way; or if it is not an incident I think it will be hard to say what it is. At the same time it is an expression of character. If you say you dont see it, . . . this is exactly what the artist who has reasons of his own for thinking he does see it undertakes to show you.
Though characterization is gradual, taking place sequen-
Character is destiny. tially through the story, it is not, as it may seem natural to
assume, entirely cumulative. We do not begin with an empty space called Judith or William or Primrose and ll it in gradually by adding physical traits, habitual actions, ways of speaking, and so on. Our imagination does not work that way. Rather, just as at each point in the action we project some sort of conguration of how the story will come out or what the world of the story will be like or mean, so we project a more or less complete image of each character at the point at which he or she is rst mentioned or appears. The image is based on the initial reference in the text, our reading, and our life experiences and associations. The next time the character appears, we continue to project an image of a complete personality that we might eventually get to know, though we are still only slightly acquainted with this character. Just as in the plot we project a new series of developments and a new outcome at each stage, in characterization we are prepared to be surprised by the traits or qualities that emerge in the course of the action. In other words, rather than assembling a character the way a child attaches the eyes, ears, or hat to a Mr. Potato Head, we overlay a series of impressions of a complete, existing person. Though the nal image may be the most enduring, the early images do not all disappear: our view of the character is multidimensional, ickering, like a time-lapse photograph. Perhaps that is why it is rare that any actor in a lm based on a novel or story matches the way we imagined that character if we have read the book or story rstour imagination has not one image but rather a sequence of images associated with that character. It is also why some of us feel that seeing the lm before reading the book hobbles the imagination. A particular characters physical attributes, for example, may not be described in a novel until after that character has been involved in some incident; the reader may then need to adjust his or her earlier vision of that character, which is not an option for the viewer of a lm. It is thus the reader, rather than a casting director, who nalizes a character in his or her own imagination. Indeed, you may consider yourself a collaborator with the writer in realizing the appearance, manner, and personality of the characters described on the page, as the words leave so much to the imagination. For we are all artists representing reality to ourselves. If we study the art of characterization
GEORGE ELIOT
EUDORA WELTY
Why I Live at the P.O. 145
and think about the way we interpret ctional characters, we may become better artists, able to enrich our reading both of ctional texts and of real people and situations.
EUDORA WELTY
Why I Live at the P.O.

I was getting along ne with Mama, Papa-Daddy, and Uncle Rondo until my sister Stella-Rondo just separated from her husband and came back home again. Mr. Whitaker! Of course I went with Mr. Whitaker rst, when he rst appeared here in China Grove, taking Pose Yourself photos, and Stella-Rondo broke us up. Told him I was one-sided. Bigger on one side than the other, which is a deliberate, calculated falsehood: Im the same. Stella-Rondo is exactly twelve months to the day younger than I am and for that reason shes spoiled. Shes always had anything in the world she wanted and then shed throw it away. Papa-Daddy give her this gorgeous Add-a-Pearl necklace when she was eight years old and she threw it away playing baseball when she was nine, with only two pearls. So as soon as she got married and moved away from home the rst thing she did was separate! From Mr. Whitaker! This photographer with the popeyes she said she trusted. Came home from one of those towns up in Illinois and to our complete surprise brought this child of two. Mama said she like to make her drop dead for a second. Here you had this marvelous blonde child and never so much as wrote your mother a word about it, says Mama. Im thoroughly ashamed of you. But of course she wasnt. Stella-Rondo just calmly takes off this hat, I wish you could see it. She says, Why, Mama, Shirley-T.s adopted, I can prove it. How? says Mama, but all I says was, Hm! There I was over the hot stove, trying to stretch two chickens over ve people and a completely unexpected child into the bargain without one moments notice. What do you meanHm? says Stella-Rondo, and Mama says, I heard that, Sister. I said that oh, I didnt mean a thing, only that whoever Shirley-T. was, she was the spit-image of Papa-Daddy if hed cut off his beard, which of course hed never do in the world. Papa-Daddys Mamas papa and sulks. Stella-Rondo got furious! She said, Sister, I dont need to tell you you got a lot of nerve and always did have and Ill thank you to make no future reference to my adopted child whatsoever. Very well, I said. Very well, very well. Of course I noticed at once she looks like Mr. Whitakers side too. That frown. She looks like a cross between Mr. Whitaker and Papa-Daddy. Well, all I can say is she isnt. She looks exactly like Shirley Temple to me, says Mama, but Shirley-T. just ran away from her. So the rst thing Stella-Rondo did at the table was turn Papa-Daddy against me.
10
15
20
25
30
Papa-Daddy, she says. He was trying to cut up his meat. Papa-Daddy! I was taken completely by surprise. Papa-Daddy is about a million years old ands got this long-long beard. Papa-Daddy, Sister says she fails to understand why you dont cut off your beard. So Papa-Daddy l-a-y-s down his knife and fork! Hes real rich. Mama says he is, he says he isnt. So he says, Have I heard correctly? You dont understand why I dont cut off my beard? Why, I says, Papa-Daddy, of course I understand, I did not say any such a thing, the idea! He says, Hussy! I says, Papa-Daddy, you know I wouldnt any more want you to cut off your beard than the man in the moon. It was the farthest thing from my mind! StellaRondo sat there and made that up while she was eating breast of chicken. But he says, So the postmistress fails to understand why I dont cut off my beard. Which job I got you through my inuence with the government. Birds nestis that what you call it? Not that it isnt the next to smallest P.O. in the entire state of Mississippi. I says, Oh, Papa-Daddy, I says, I didnt say any such a thing, I never dreamed it was a birds nest, I have always been grateful though this is the next to smallest P.O. in the state of Mississippi, and I do not enjoy being referred to as a hussy by my own grandfather. But Stella-Rondo says, Yes, you did say it too. Anybody in the world could of heard you, that had ears. Stop right there, says Mama, looking at me. So I pulled my napkin straight back through the napkin ring and left the table. As soon as I was out of the room Mama says, Call her back, or shell starve to death, but Papa-Daddy says, This is the beard I started growing on the Coast when I was fteen years old. He would of gone on till nightfall if Shirley-T. hadnt lost the Milky Way she ate in Cairo. So Papa-Daddy says, I am going out and lie in the hammock, and you can all sit here and remember my words: Ill never cut off my beard as long as I live, even one inch, and I dont appreciate it in you at all. Passed right by me in the hall and went straight out and got in the hammock. It would be a holiday. It wasnt ve minutes before Uncle Rondo suddenly appeared in the hall in one of Stella-Rondos esh-colored kimonos, all cut on the bias, like something Mr. Whitaker probably thought was gorgeous. Uncle Rondo! I says. I didnt know who that was! Where are you going? Sister, he says, get out of my way, Im poisoned. If youre poisoned stay away from Papa-Daddy, I says. Keep out of the hammock. Papa-Daddy will certainly beat you on the head if you come within forty miles of him. He thinks I deliberately said he ought to cut off his beard after he got me the P.O., and Ive told him and told him and told him, and he acts like he just dont hear me. Papa-Daddy must of gone stone deaf. He picked a ne day to do it then, says Uncle Rondo, and before you could say Jack Robinson ew out in the yard. What hed really done, hed drunk another bottle of that prescription. He does it every single Fourth of July as sure as shooting, and its horribly expensive. Then he falls over in the hammock and snores. So he insisted on zigzagging right on out to the hammock, looking like a half-wit.
EUDORA WELTY
Papa-Daddy woke with this horrible yell and right there without moving an inch he tried to turn Uncle Rondo against me. I heard every word he said. Oh, he told Uncle Rondo I didnt learn to read till I was eight years old and he didnt see how in the world I ever got the mail put up at the P.O., much less read it all, and he said if Uncle Rondo could only fathom the lengths he had gone to get me that job! And he said on the other hand he thought Stella-Rondo had a brilliant mind and deserved credit for getting out of town. All the time he was just lying there swinging as pretty as you please and looping out his beard, and poor Uncle Rondo was pleading with him to slow down the hammock, it was making him as dizzy as a witch to watch it. But thats what Papa-Daddy likes about a hammock. So Uncle Rondo was too dizzy to get turned against me for the time being. Hes Mamas only brother and is a good case of a one-track mind. Ask anybody. A certied pharmacist. Just then I heard Stella-Rondo raising the upstairs window. While she was married she got this peculiar idea that its cooler with the windows shut and locked. So she has to raise the window before she can make a soul hear her outdoors. So she raises the window and says, Oh! You would have thought she was mortally wounded. Uncle Rondo and Papa-Daddy didnt even look up, but kept right on with what they were doing. I had to laugh. I ew up the stairs and threw the door open! I says, What in the wide worlds the matter, Stella-Rondo? You mortally wounded? No, she says, I am not mortally wounded but I wish you would do me the favor of looking out that window there and telling me what you see. So I shade my eyes and look out the window. I see the front yard, I says. Dont you see any human beings? I see Uncle Rondo trying to run Papa-Daddy out of the hammock, I says. Nothing more. Naturally, its so suffocating-hot in the house, with all the windows shut and locked, everybody who cares to stay in their right mind will have to go out and get in the hammock before the Fourth of July is over. Dont you notice anything different about Uncle Rondo? asks Stella-Rondo. Why, no, except hes got on some terrible-looking esh-colored contraption I wouldnt be found dead in, is all I can see, I says. Never mind, you wont be found dead in it, because it happens to be part of my trousseau, and Mr. Whitaker took several dozen photographs of me in it, says Stella-Rondo. What on earth could uncle Rondo mean by wearing part of my trousseau out in the broad open daylight without saying so much as Kiss my foot, knowing I only got home this morning after my separation and hung my negligee up on the bathroom door, just as nervous as I could be? Im sure I dont know, and what do you expect me to do about it? I says. Jump out the window? No, I expect nothing of the kind. I simply declare that Uncle Rondo looks like a fool in it, thats all, she says. It makes me sick to my stomach. Well, he looks as good as he can, I says. As good as anybody in reason could. I stood up for Uncle Rondo, please remember. And I said to Stella-Rondo, I think I would do well not to criticize so freely if I were you and came home with a two-year-old child I had never said a word about, and no explanation whatever about my separation.
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
I asked you the instant I entered this house not to refer one more time to my adopted child, and you gave me your word of honor you would not, was all Stella-Rondo would say, and started pulling out every one of her eyebrows with some cheap Kress tweezers. So I merely slammed the door behind me and went down and made some green-tomato pickle. Somebody had to do it. Of course Mama had turned both the Negroes loose; she always said no earthly power could hold one anyway on the Fourth of July, so she wouldnt even try. It turned out that Jaypan fell in the lake and came within a very narrow limit of drowning. So Mama trots in. Lifts up the lid and says, Hm! Not very good for your Uncle Rondo in his precarious condition, I must say. Or poor little adopted Shirley-T. Shame on you! That made me tired. I says, Well, Stella-Rondo had better thank her lucky stars it was her instead of me came trotting in with that very peculiar-looking child. Now if it had been me that trotted in from Illinois and brought a peculiarlooking child or two, I shudder to think of the reception Id of got, much less controlled the diet of an entire family. But you must remember, Sister, that you were never married to Mr. Whitaker in the rst place and didnt go up to Illinois to live, says Mama, shaking a spoon in my face. If you had I would of been just as overjoyed to see you and your little adopted girl as I was to see Stella-Rondo, when you wound up with your separation and came on back home. You would not, I says. Dont contradict me, I would, says Mama. But I said she couldnt convince me though she talked till she was blue in the face. Then I said, Besides, you know as well as I do that that child is not adopted. She most certainly is adopted, says Mama, stiff as a poker. I says, Why, Mama, Stella-Rondo had her just as sure as anything in this world, and just too stuck up to admit it. Why, Sister, said Mama. Here I thought we were going to have a pleasant Fourth of July, and you start right out not believing a word your own baby sister tells you! Just like Cousin Annie Flo. Went to her grave denying the facts of life, I reminded Mama. I told you if you ever mentioned Annie Flos name Id slap your face, says Mama, and slaps my face. All right, you wait and see, I says. I, says Mama, I prefer to take my childrens word for anything when its humanly possible. You ought to see Mama, she weighs two hundred pounds and has real tiny feet. Just then something perfectly horrible occurred to me. Mama, I says, can that child talk? I simply had to whisper! Mama, I wonder if that child can beyou knowin any way? Do you realize? I says, that she hasnt spoke one single, solitary word to a human being up to this minute? This is the way she looks, I says, and I looked like this. Well, Mama and I just stood there and stared at each other. It was horrible! I remember well that Joe Whitaker frequently drank like a sh, says Mama. I believed to my soul he drank chemicals. And without another word she marches to the foot of the stairs and calls Stella-Rondo.
EUDORA WELTY
Stella-Rondo? O-o-o-o-o! Stella-Rondo! What? says Stella-Rondo from upstairs. Not even the grace to get up off the bed. Can that child of yours talk? asks Mama. Stella-Rondo says, Can she what? Talk! Talk! says Mama. Burdyburdyburdyburdy! So Stella-Rondo yells back, Who says she cant talk? Sister says so, says Mama. You didnt have to tell me, I know whose word of honor dont mean a thing in this house, says Stella-Rondo. And in a minute the loudest Yankee voice I ever heard in my life yells out, OEm Pop-OE the Sailor-r-r-r Ma-a-an! and then somebody jumps up and down in the upstairs hall. In another second the house would of fallen down. Not only talks, she can tap-dance! calls Stella-Rondo. Which is more than some people I wont name can do. Why, the little precious darling thing! Mama says, so surprised. Just as smart as she can be! Starts talking baby talk right there. Then she turns on me. Sister, you ought to be thoroughly ashamed! Run upstairs this instant and apologize to Stella-Rondo and Shirley-T. Apologize for what? I says. I merely wondered if the child was normal, thats all. Now that shes proved she is, why, I have nothing further to say. But Mama just turned on her heel and ew out, furious. She ran right upstairs and hugged the baby. She believed it was adopted. Stella-Rondo hadnt done a thing but turn her against me from upstairs while I stood there helpless over the hot stove. So that made Mama, Papa-Daddy, and the baby all on StellaRondos side. Next, Uncle Rondo. I must say that Uncle Rondo has been marvelous to me at various times in the past and I was completely unprepared to be made to jump out of my skin, the way it turned out. Once Stella-Rondo did something perfectly horrible to himbroke a chain letter from Flanders Fieldand he took the radio back he had given her and gave it to me. Stella-Rondo was furious! For six months we all had to call her Stella instead of Stella-Rondo, or she wouldnt answer. I always thought Uncle Rondo had all the brains of the entire family. Another time he sent me to Mammoth Cave with all expenses paid. But this would be the day he was drinking that prescription, the Fourth of July. So at supper Stella-Rondo speaks up and says she thinks Uncle Rondo ought to try to eat a little something. So nally Uncle Rondo said he would try a little cold biscuits and ketchup, but that was all. So she brought it to him. Do you think it wise to disport with ketchup in Stella-Rondos esh-colored kimono? I says. Trying to be considerate! If Stella-Rondo couldnt watch out for her trousseau, somebody had to. Any objections? asks Uncle Rondo, just about to pour out all of the ketchup. Dont mind what she says, Uncle Rondo, says Stella-Rondo. Sister has been devoting this solid afternoon to sneering out my bedroom window at the way you look. Whats that? says Uncle Rondo. Uncle Rondo has got the most terrible temper in the world. Anything is liable to make him tear the house down if it comes at the wrong time.
70
75
80
85
90
95
100
So Stella-Rondo says, Sister says, Uncle Rondo certainly does look like a fool in that pink kimono! Do you remember who it was really said that? Uncle Rondo spills out all the ketchup and jumps out of his chair and tears off the kimono and throws it down on the dirty oor and puts his foot on it. It had to be sent all the way to Jackson to the cleaners and re-pleated. So thats your opinion of your Uncle Rondo, is it? he says. I look like a fool, do I? Well, thats the last straw. A whole day in this house with nothing to do, and then to hear you come out with a remark like that behind my back! I didnt say any such of a thing, Uncle Rondo, I says, and Im not saying who did, either. Why, I think you look all right. Just try to take care of yourself and not talk and eat at the same time, I says. I think you better go lie down. Lie down my foot, says Uncle Rondo. I ought to of known by that he was xing to do something perfectly horrible. So he didnt do anything that night in the precarious state he was injust played Casino with Mama and Stella-Rondo and Shirley-T. and gave Shirley-T. a nickel with a head on both sides. It tickled her nearly to death, and she called him Papa. But at 6:30 A.M. the next morning, he threw a whole ve-cent package of some unsold one-inch recrackers from the store as hard as he could into my bedroom and they every one went off. Not one bad one in the string. Anybody else, thered be one that wouldnt go off. Well, Im just terribly susceptible to noise of any kind, the doctor has always told me I was the most sensitive person he had ever seen in his whole life, and I was simply prostrated. I couldnt eat! People tell me they heard it as far as the cemetery, and old Aunt Jep Patterson, that had been holding her own so good, thought it was Judgment Day and she was going to meet her whole family. Its usually so quiet here. And Ill tell you it didnt take me any longer than a minute to make up my mind what to do. There I was with the whole entire house on Stella-Rondos side and turned against me. If I have anything at all I have pride. So I just decided Id go straight down to the P.O. Theres plenty of room there in the back, I says to myself. Well! I made no bones about letting the family catch on to what I was up to. I didnt try to conceal it. The rst thing they knew, I marched in where they were all playing Old Maid and pulled the electric oscillating fan out by the plug, and everything got real hot. Next I snatched the pillow Id done the needlepoint on right off the davenport from behind Papa-Daddy. He went Ugh! I beat Stella-Rondo up the stairs and nally found my charm bracelet in her bureau drawer under a picture of Nelson Eddy.1 So thats the way the land lies, says Uncle Rondo. There he was, piecing on the ham. Well, Sister, Ill be glad to donate my army cot if you got any place to set it up, providing youll leave right this minute and let me get some peace. Uncle Rondo was in France. Thank you kindly for the cot and peace is hardly the word I would select if
1. Opera singer (19011967) who enjoyed phenomenal popularity in the 1930s and 1940s when he costarred in numerous lm musicals with Jeanette MacDonald. The two were known as Americas Singing Sweethearts.
EUDORA WELTY
I had to resort to recrackers at 6:30 A.M. in a young girls bedroom, I says to him. And as to where I intend to go, you seem to forget my position as postmistress of China Grove, Mississippi, I says. Ive always got the P.O. Well, that made them all sit up and take notice. I went out front and started digging up some four-oclocks to plant around the P.O. Ah-ah-ah! says Mama, raising the window. Those happen to be my fouroclocks. Everything planted in that star is mine. Ive never known you to make anything grow in your life. Very well, I says. But I take the fern. Even you, Mama, cant stand there and deny that Im the one watered that fern. And I happen to know where I can send in a box top and get a packet of one thousand mixed seeds, no two the same kind, free. Oh, where? Mama wants to know. But I says, Too late. You tend to your house, and Ill tend to mine. You hear things like that all the time if you know how to listen to the radio. Perfectly marvelous offers. Get anything you want free. So I hope to tell you I marched in and got that radio, and they could of all bit a nail in two, especially Stella-Rondo, that it used to belong to, and she well knew she couldnt get it back, Id sue for it like a shot. And I very politely took the sewing-machine motor I helped pay the most on to give Mama for Christmas back in 1929, and a good big calendar, with the rst-aid remedies on it. The thermometer and the Hawaiian ukulele certainly were rightfully mine, and I stood on the step-ladder and got all my watermelon-rind preserves and every fruit and vegetable Id put up, every jar. Then I began to pull the tacks out of the bluebird wall vases on the archway to the dining room. Who told you you could have those, Miss Priss? says Mama, fanning as hard as she could. I bought em and Ill keep track of em, I says. Ill tack em up one on each side of the post-ofce window, and you can see em when you come to ask me for your mail, if youre so dead to see em. Not I! Ill never darken the door to that post ofce again if I live to be a hundred, Mama says. Ungrateful child! After all the money we spent on you at the Normal.2 Me either, says Stella-Rondo. You can just let my mail lie there and rot, for all I care. Ill never come and relieve you of a single, solitary piece. I should worry, I says. And who you thinks going to sit down and write you all those big fat letters and postcards, by the way? Mr. Whitaker? Just because he was the only man ever dropped down in China Grove and you got him unfairlyis he going to sit down and write you a lengthy correspondence after you come home giving no rhyme nor reason whatsoever for your separation and no explanation for the presence of that child? I may not have your brilliant mind, but I fail to see it. So Mama says, Sister, Ive told you a thousand times that Stella-Rondo simply got homesick, and this child is far too big to be hers, and she says, Now, why dont you just sit down and play Casino? Then Shirley-T. sticks out her tongue at me in this perfectly horrible way. She
2. That is, normal school (teachers college).
105
110
115
120
125
130
135
has no more manners than the man in the moon. I told her she was going to cross her eyes like that some day and theyd stick. Its too late to stop me now, I says. You should have tried that yesterday. Im going to the P.O. and the only way you can possibly see me is to visit me there. So Papa-Daddy says, Youll never catch me setting foot in that post ofce, even if I should take a notion into my head to write a letter some place. He says, I wont have you reachin out of that little old window with a pair of shears and cuttin off any beard of mine. Im too smart for you! We all are, says Stella-Rondo. But I said, If youre so smart, wheres Mr. Whitaker? So then Uncle Rondo says, Ill thank you from now on to stop reading all the orders I get on postcards and telling everybody in China Grove what you think is the matter with them, but I says, I draw my own conclusions and will continue in the future to draw them. I says, If people want to write their innermost secrets on penny postcards, theres nothing in the wide world you can do about it, Uncle Rondo. And if you think well ever write another postcard youre sadly mistaken, says Mama. Cutting off your nose to spite your face then, I says. But if youre all determined to have no more to do with the U.S. mail, think of this: What will StellaRondo do now, if she wants to tell Mr. Whitaker to come after her? Wah! says Stella-Rondo. I knew shed cry. She had a conniption t right there in the kitchen. It will be interesting to see how long she holds out, I says. And nowI am leaving. Good-bye, says Uncle Rondo. Oh, I declare, says Mama, to think that a family of mine should quarrel on the Fourth of July, or the day after, over Stella-Rondo leaving old Mr. Whitaker and having the sweetest little adopted child! It looks like wed all be glad! Wah! says Stella-Rondo, and has a fresh conniption t. He left heryou mark my words, I says. Thats Mr. Whitaker. I know Mr. Whitaker. After all, I knew him rst. I said from the beginning hed up and leave her. I foretold every single thing thats happened. Where did he go? asks Mama. Probably to the North Pole, if he knows whats good for him, I says. But Stella-Rondo just bawled and wouldnt say another word. She ew to her room and slammed the door. Now look what youve gone and done, Sister, says Mama. You go apologize. I havent the time, Im leaving, I says. Well, what are you waiting around for? asks Uncle Rondo. So I just picked up the kitchen clock and marched off, without saying, Kiss my foot, or anything, and never did tell Stella-Rondo good-bye. There was a girl going along on a little wagon right in front. Girl, I says, come help me haul these things down the hill, Im going to live in the post ofce. Took her nine trips in her express wagon. Uncle Rondo came out on the porch and threw her a nickel.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Bartleby, the Scrivener 153

140
And thats the last Ive laid eyes on any of my family or my family laid eyes on me for ve solid days and nights. Stella-Rondo may be telling the most horrible tales in the world about Mr. Whitaker, but I havent heard them. As I tell everybody, I draw my own conclusions. But oh, I like it here. Its ideal, as Ive been saying. You see, Ive got everything cater-cornered, the way I like it. Hear the radio? All the war news. Radio, sewing machine, book ends, ironing board and that great big piano lamppeace, thats what I like. Butter-bean vines planted all along the front where the strings are. Of course, theres not much mail. My family are naturally the main people in China Grove, and if they prefer to vanish from the face of the earth, for all the mail they get or the mail they write, why, Im not going to open my mouth. Some of the folks here in town are taking up for me and some turned against me. I know which is which. There are always people who will quit buying stamps just to get on the right side of Papa-Daddy. But here I am, and here Ill stay. I want the world to know Im happy. And if Stella-Rondo should come to me this minute, on bended knees, and attempt to explain the incidents of her life with Mr. Whitaker, Id simply put my ngers in both my ears and refuse to listen. 1941
QUESTIONS
1. What is your initial impression of Sister, the storys narrator? At what points in the story do you nd yourself reassessing this character? Why? 2. How would you characterize the other members of Sisters family? Which of them (Stella-Rondo, Mama, Papa-Daddy, Uncle Rondo) seem most fully eshed out, and which seem at? 3. Is there a realistic way to account for the melodrama of Sisters family life, or is Welty merely exaggerating for comic effect? What clues in the text make Why I Live at the P.O. believable or unbelievable?
HERMAN MELVILLE
Bartleby, the Scrivener

A Story of Wall Street
I am a rather elderly man. The nature of my avocations for the last thirty years has brought me into more than ordinary contact with what would seem an interesting and somewhat singular set of men, of whom as yet nothing that I know of has ever been written:I mean the law-copyists or scriveners. I have known very many of them, professionally and privately, and if I pleased, could relate divers histories, at which good-natured gentlemen might smile, and sentimental souls might weep. But I waive the biographies of all other scriveners for a few passages in the life of Bartleby, who was a scrivener the strangest I ever saw or heard of. While of other law-copyists I might write the complete life, of Bartleby nothing of that sort can be done. I believe that no materials exist for a full and satisfactory biography of this man. It is an irreparable loss to literature.
Bartleby was one of those beings of whom nothing is ascertainable, except from the original sources, and in his case those are very small. What my own astonished eyes saw of Bartleby, that is all I know of him, except, indeed, one vague report which will appear in the sequel.1 Ere introducing the scrivener, as he rst appeared to me, it is t I make some mention of myself, my employe es, my business, my chambers, and general surroundings; because some such description is indispensable to an adequate understanding of the chief character about to be presented. Imprimis:2 I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been lled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best. Hence, though I belong to a profession proverbially energetic and nervous, even to turbulence, at times, yet nothing of that sort have I ever suffered to invade my peace. I am one of those unambitious lawyers who never addresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause; but in the cool tranquillity of a snug retreat, do a snug business among rich mens bonds and mortgages and title-deeds. All who know me, consider me an eminently safe man. The late John Jacob Astor,3 a personage little given to poetic enthusiasm, had no hesitation in pronouncing my rst grand point to be prudence; my next, method. I do not speak it in vanity, but simply record the fact, that I was not unemployed in my profession by the late John Jacob Astor; a name which, I admit, I love to repeat, for it hath a rounded and orbicular sound to it, and rings like unto bullion. I will freely add that I was not insensible to the late John Jacob Astors good opinion. Some time prior to the period at which this little history begins, my avocations had been largely increased. The good old ofce, now extinct in the State of New York, of a Master in Chancery 4 had been conferred upon me. It was not a very arduous ofce, but very pleasantly remunerative. I seldom lose my temper; much more seldom indulge in dangerous indignation at wrongs and outrages; but I must be permitted to be rash here and declare, that I consider the sudden and violent abrogation of the ofce of Master in Chancery, by the new Constitution, as apremature act; inasmuch as I had counted upon a life-lease of the prots, whereas I only received those of a few short years. But this is by the way. My chambers were up stairs at No. Wall Street. At one end they looked upon the white wall of the interior of a spacious skylight shaft, penetrating the building from top to bottom. This view might have been considered rather tame than otherwise, decient in what landscape painters call life. But if so, the view from the other end of my chambers offered, at least, a contrast, if nothing more. In that direction my windows commanded an unobstructed view of a lofty brick wall, black by age and everlasting shade; which wall required no spyglass to bring out its lurking beauties, but for the benet of all near-sighted spectators, was pushed up to within ten feet of my window panes. Owing to the great height of the surrounding buildings, and my chambers being on the second oor, the interval between this wall and mine not a little resembled a huge square cistern. At the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby, I had two persons as copyists in my employment, and a promising lad as an ofce-boy. First, Turkey;
1. That is, in the following story. 2. In the rst place. 3. New York fur merchant and landowner (17631848) who died the richest man in the United States. 4. A court of chancery can temper the law, applying dictates of conscience or the principles of natural justice; the ofce of Master was abolished in 1847.
HERMAN MELVILLE
second, Nippers, third, Ginger Nut. These may seem names the like of which are not usually found in the Directory.5 In truth they were nicknames, mutually conferred upon each other by my three clerks, and were deemed expressive of their respective persons or characters. Turkey was a short, pursy 6 Englishman of about my own age, that is, somewhere not far from sixty. In the morning, one might say, his face was of a ne orid hue, but after twelve oclock, meridian his dinner hourit blazed like a grate full of Christmas coals; and continued blazingbut, as it were, with a gradual wanetill 6 oclock, P.M. or thereabouts, after which I saw no more of the proprietor of the face, which gaining its meridian with the sun, seemed to set with it, to rise, culminate, and decline the following day, with the like regularity and undiminished glory. There are many singular coincidences I have known in the course of my life, not the least among which was the fact, that exactly when Turkey displayed his fullest beams from his red and radiant countenance, just then, too, at that critical moment, began the daily period when I considered his business capacities as seriously disturbed for the remainder of the twenty-four hours. Not that he was absolutely idle, or averse to business then; far from it. The difculty was, he was apt to be altogether too energetic. There was a strange, inamed, urried, ighty recklessness of activity about him. He would be incautious in dipping his pen into his inkstand. All his blots upon my documents were dropped there after twelve oclock, meridian. Indeed, not only would he be reckless and sadly given to making blots in the afternoon, but some days he went further, and was rather noisy. At such times, too, his face amed with augmented blazonry, as if cannel coal had been heaped on anthracite.7 He made an unpleasant racket with his chair; spilled his sandbox; in mending his pens, impatiently split them all to pieces, and threw them on the oor in a sudden passion; stood up and leaned over his table, boxing his papers about in a most indecorous manner, very sad to behold in an elderly man like him. Nevertheless, as he was in many ways a most valuable person to me, and all the time before twelve oclock, meridian, was the quickest, steadiest creature too, accomplishing a great deal of work in a style not easy to be matchedfor these reasons, I was willing to overlook his eccentricities, though indeed, occasionally, I remonstrated with him. I did this very gently, however, because, though the civilest, nay, the blandest and most reverential of men in the morning, yet in the afternoon he was disposed, upon provocation, to be slightly rash with his tongue, in fact, insolent. Now, valuing his morning services as I did, and resolved not to lose them; yet, at the same time made uncomfortable by his inamed ways after twelve oclock; and being a man of peace, unwilling by my admonitions to call forth unseemly retorts from him; I took upon me, one Saturday noon (he was always worse on Saturdays), to hint to him, very kindly, that perhaps now that he was growing old, it might be well to abridge his labors; in short, he need not come to my chambers after twelve oclock, but, dinner over, had best go home to his lodgings and rest himself till tea-time. But no; he insisted upon his afternoon devotions. His countenance became intolerably fervid, as he oratorically assured megesticulating with a long ruler at the other end of the room that if his services in the morning were useful, how indispensable, then, in the afternoon?
5. Post Ofce Directory. 6. Fat, short-winded. 7. A fast, bright-burning coal heaped on slow-burning, barely glowing coal.
10
With submission, sir, said Turkey on this occasion, I consider myself your right-hand man. In the morning I but marshal and deploy my columns; but in the afternoon I put myself at their head, and gallantly charge the foe, thus! and he made a violent thrust with the ruler. But the blots, Turkey, intimated I. True,but, with submission, sir, behold these hairs! I am getting old. Surely, sir, a blot or two of a warm afternoon is not to be severely urged against gray hairs. Old ageeven if it blot the pageis honorable. With submission, sir, we both are getting old. This appeal to my fellow-feeling was hardly to be resisted. At all events, I saw that go he would not. So I made up my mind to let him stay, resolving, nevertheless, to see to it, that during the afternoon he had to do with my less important papers. Nippers, the second on my list, was a whiskered, sallow, and, upon the whole, rather piratical-looking young man of about ve and twenty. I always deemed him the victim of two evil powersambition and indigestion. The ambition was evinced by a certain impatience of the duties of a mere copyist, an unwarrantable usurpation of strictly professional affairs, such as the original drawing up of legal documents. The indigestion seemed betokened in an occasional nervous testiness and grinning irritability, causing the teeth to audibly grind together over mistakes committed in copying; unnecessary maledictions, hissed, rather than spoken, in the heat of business; and especially by a continual discontent with the height of the table where he worked. Though of a very ingenious mechanical turn, Nippers could never get this table to suit him. He put chips under it, blocks of various sorts, bits of pasteboard, and at last went so far as to attempt an exquisite adjustment by nal pieces of folded blotting-paper. But no invention would answer. If, for the sake of easing his back, he brought the table lid at a sharp angle well up towards his chin, and wrote there like a man using the steep roof of a Dutch house for his desk:then he declared that it stopped the circulation in his arms. If now he lowered the table to his waistbands, and stooped over it in writing, then there was a sore aching in his back. In short, the truth of the matter was, Nippers knew not what he wanted. Or, if he wanted any thing, it was to be rid of a scriveners table altogether. Among the manifestations of his diseased ambition was a fondness he had for receiving visits from certain ambiguous-looking fellows in seedy coats, whom he called his clients. Indeed I was aware that not only was he, at times, considerable of a ward-politician, but he occasionally did a little business at the Justices courts, and was not unknown on the steps of the Tombs.8 I have good reason to believe, however, that one individual who called upon him at my chambers, and who, with a grand air, he insisted was his client, was no other than a dun,9 and the alleged title-deed, a bill. But with all his failings, and the annoyances he caused me, Nippers, like his compatriot Turkey, was a very useful man to me; wrote a neat, swift hand; and, when he chose, was not decient in a gentlemanly sort of deportment. Added to this, he always dressed in a gentlemanly sort of way: and so, incidentally, reected credit upon my chambers. Whereas with respect to Turkey, I had much ado to keep him from being a reproach to me. His clothes were apt to look oily and smell of eating-houses. He wore his pantaloons very loose and baggy in summer.
8. Prison in New York City. 9. Bill collector.
HERMAN MELVILLE
His coats were execrable; his hat not to be handled. But while the hat was a thing of indifference to me, inasmuch as his natural civility and deference, as a dependent Englishman, always led him to doff it the moment he entered the room, yet his coat was another matter. Concerning his coats, I reasoned with him; but with no effect. The truth was, I suppose, that a man with so small an income, could not afford to sport such a lustrous face and a lustrous coat at one and the same time. As Nippers once observed, Turkeys money went chiey for red ink. One winter day I presented Turkey with a highly-respectable looking coat of my own, a padded gray coat, of a most comfortable warmth, and which buttoned straight up from the knee to the neck. I thought Turkey would appreciate the favor, and abate his rashness and obstreperousness of afternoons. But no. I verily believe that buttoning himself up in so downy and blanket-like a coat had a pernicious effect upon him; upon the same principle that too much oats are bad for horses. In fact, precisely as a rash, restive horse is said to feel his oats, so Turkey felt his coat. It made him insolent. He was a man whom prosperity harmed. Though concerning the self-indulgent habits of Turkey I had my own private surmises, yet touching Nippers I was well persuaded that whatever might be his faults in other respects, he was, at least, a temperate young man. But indeed, nature herself seemed to have been his vintner,1 and at his birth charged him so thoroughly with an irritable, brandy-like disposition, that all subsequent potations were needless. When I consider how, amid the stillness of my chambers, Nippers would sometimes impatiently rise from his seat, and stooping over his table, spread his arms wide apart, seize the whole desk, and move it, and jerk it, with a grim, grinding motion on the oor, as if the table were a perverse voluntary agent, intent on thwarting and vexing him; I plainly perceive that for Nippers, brandy and water were altogether superuous. It was fortunate for me that, owing to its peculiar causeindigestionthe irritability and consequent nervousness of Nippers, were mainly observable in the morning, while in the afternoon he was comparatively mild. So that Turkeys paroxysms only coming on about twelve oclock, I never had to do with their eccentricities at one time. Their ts relieved each other like guards. When Nippers was on, Turkeys was off; and vice versa. This was a good natural arrangement under the circumstances. Ginger Nut, the third on my list, was a lad some twelve years old. His father was a carman,2 ambitious of seeing his son on the bench instead of a cart, before he died. So he sent him to my ofce as student at law, errand boy, and cleaner and sweeper, at the rate of one dollar a week. He had a little desk to himself, but he did not use it much. Upon inspection, the drawer exhibited a great array of the shells of various sorts of nuts. Indeed, to this quick-witted youth the whole noble science of the law was contained in a nutshell. Not the least among the employments of Ginger Nut, as well as one which he discharged with the most alacrity, was his duty as cake and apple purveyor for Turkey and Nippers. Copying law papers being proverbially a dry, husky sort of business, my two scriveners were fain to moisten their mouths very often with Spitzenbergs3 to be had at the numerous stalls nigh the Custom House and Post Ofce. Also, they sent Ginger Nut very frequently for that peculiar cakesmall, at, round, and very spicyafter which he had been named by them. Of a cold morning when business
1. Wine seller. 2. Driver of wagon or cart that hauls goods. 3. Red-and-yellow American apple.
15
was but dull, Turkey would gobble up scores of these cakes, as if they were mere wafersindeed they sell them at the rate of six or eight for a pennythe scrape of his pen blending with the crunching of the crisp particles in his mouth. Of all the ery afternoon blunders and urried rashnesses of Turkey, was his once moistening a ginger-cake between his lips, and clapping it on to a mortgage for a seal. I came within an ace of dismissing him then. But he mollied me by making an oriental bow, and sayingWith submission, sir, it was generous of me to nd you in4 stationery on my own account. Now my original businessthat of a conveyancer and title hunter,5 and drawer-up of recondite documents of all sortswas considerably increased by receiving the masters ofce. There was now great work for scriveners. Not only must I push the clerks already with me, but I must have additional help. In answer to my advertisement, a motionless young man one morning stood upon my ofce threshold, the door being open, for it was summer. I can see that gure nowpallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn! It was Bartleby. After a few words touching his qualications, I engaged him, glad to have among my corps of copyists a man of so singularly sedate an aspect, which I thought might operate benecially upon the ighty temper of Turkey, and the ery 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 triing 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 backyards 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 rst 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 sunlight and by candlelight. 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 scriveners business to verify the accuracy of his copy, word by word. Where there are two or more scriveners in an ofce, 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
4. Supply you with. 5. Lawyer who draws up deeds for transferring property, and one who searches out legal control of title deeds.
HERMAN MELVILLE
have contentedly sat down with Bartleby to examine a law document of, say, ve 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. In this very attitude did I sit when I called to him, rapidly stating what it was I wanted him to donamely, to examine a small paper with me. Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when without moving from his privacy, Bartleby, in a singularly mild, rm voice, replied, I would prefer not to. I sat awhile in perfect silence, rallying my stunned faculties. Immediately it occurred to me that my ears had deceived me, or Bartleby had entirely misunderstood my meaning. I repeated my request in the clearest tone I could assume. But in quite as clear a one came the previous reply, I would prefer not to. Prefer not to, echoed I, rising in high excitement, and crossing the room with a stride. What do you mean? Are you moon-struck?6 I want you to help me compare this sheet heretake it, and I thrust it towards him. I would prefer not to, said he. I looked at him steadfastly. His face was leanly composed; his gray eye dimly calm. Not a wrinkle of agitation rippled him. Had there been the least uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinence in his manner; in other words, had there been anything ordinarily human about him, doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises. But as it was, I should have as soon thought of turning my pale plaster-of-paris bust of Cicero7 out-of-doors. I stood gazing at him awhile, as he went on with his own writing, and then reseated myself at my desk. This is very strange, thought I. What had one best do? But my business hurried me. I concluded to forget the matter for the present, reserving it for my future leisure. So calling Nippers from the other room, the paper was speedily examined. A few days after this, Bartleby concluded four lengthy documents, being quadruplicates of a weeks testimony taken before me in my High Court of Chancery. It became necessary to examine them. It was an important suit, and great accuracy was imperative. Having all things arranged I called Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut from the next room, meaning to place the four copies in the hands of my four clerks, while I should read from the original. Accordingly Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut had taken their seats in a row, each with his document in hand, when I called to Bartleby to join this interesting group. Bartleby! quick, I am waiting.
20
25
6. Crazy. 7. Marcus Tullius Cicero (10643 B.C.E.), pro-republican Roman statesman, barrister, writer, and orator.
30
35
40
45
I heard a slow scrape of his chair legs on the uncarpeted oor, and soon he appeared standing at the entrance of his hermitage. What is wanted? said he mildly. The copies, the copies, said I hurriedly. We are going to examine them. Thereand I held towards him the fourth quadruplicate. I would prefer not to, he said, and gently disappeared behind the screen. For a few moments I was turned into a pillar of salt,8 standing at the head of my seated column of clerks. Recovering myself, I advanced towards the screen, and demanded the reason for such extraordinary conduct. Why do you refuse? I would prefer not to. With any other man I should have own outright into a dreadful passion, scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from my presence. But there was something about Bartleby that not only strangely disarmed me, but in a wonderful manner touched and disconcerted me. I began to reason with him. These are your own copies we are about to examine. It is labor saving to you, because one examination will answer for your four papers. It is common usage. Every copyist is bound to help examine his copy. Is it not so? Will you not speak? Answer! I prefer not to, he replied in a ute-like tone. It seemed to me that while I had been addressing him, he carefully revolved every statement that I made; fully comprehended the meaning; could not gainsay the irresistible conclusion; but, at the same time, some paramount consideration prevailed with him to reply as he did. You are decided, then, not to comply with my requesta request made according to common usage and common sense? He briey gave me to understand that on that point my judgment was sound. Yes: his decision was irreversible. It is not seldom the case that when a man is browbeaten in some unprecedented and violently unreasonable way, he begins to stagger in his own plainest faith. He begins, as it were, vaguely to surmise that, wonderful as it may be, all the justice and all the reason is on the other side. Accordingly, if any disinterested persons are present, he turns to them for some reinforcement for his own faltering mind. Turkey, said I, what do you think of this? Am I not right? With submission, sir, said Turkey, with his blandest tone, I think that you are. Nippers, said I, what do you think of it? I think I should kick him out of the ofce. (The reader of nice perceptions will here perceive that, it being morning, Turkeys answer is couched in polite and tranquil terms, but Nippers replies in illtempered ones. Or, to repeat a previous sentence, Nipperss ugly mood was on duty, and Turkeys off.)
8. Struck dumb; in Genesis 19.26, Lots wife, defying Gods command, looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Ginger Nut, said I, willing to enlist the smallest suffrage9 in my behalf, what do you think of it? I think, sir, hes a little luny, replied Ginger Nut, with a grin. You hear what they say, said I, turning towards the screen, come forth and do your duty. But he vouchsafed no reply. I pondered a moment in sore perplexity. But once more business hurried me. I determined again to postpone the consideration of this dilemma to my future leisure. With a little trouble we made out to examine the papers without Bartleby, though at every page or two, Turkey deferentially dropped his opinion that this proceeding was quite out of the common; while Nippers, twitching in his chair with a dyspeptic nervousness, ground out between his set teeth occasional hissing maledictions against the stubborn oaf behind the screen. And for his (Nipperss) part, this was the rst and the last time he would do another mans business without pay. Meanwhile Bartleby sat in his hermitage, oblivious to everything but his own peculiar business there. Some days passed, the scrivener being employed upon another lengthy work. His late remarkable conduct led me to regard his ways narrowly. I observed that he never went to dinner; indeed that he never went anywhere. As yet I had never of my personal knowledge known him to be outside of my ofce. He was a perpetual sentry in the corner. At about eleven oclock though, in the morning, I noticed that Ginger Nut would advance toward the opening in Bartlebys screen, as if silently beckoned thither by a gesture invisible to me where I sat. The boy would then leave the ofce jingling a few pence, and reappear with a handful of ginger-nuts which he delivered in the hermitage, receiving two of the cakes for his trouble. He lives, then, on ginger-nuts, thought I; never eats a dinner, properly speaking; he must be a vegetarian then; but no; he never eats even vegetables, he eats nothing but ginger-nuts. My mind then ran on in reveries concerning the probable effects upon the human constitution of living entirely on ginger-nuts. Ginger-nuts are so called because they contain ginger as one of their peculiar constituents, and the nal avoring one. Now what was ginger? A hot, spicy thing. Was Bartleby hot and spicy? Not at all. Ginger, then, had no effect upon Bartleby. Probably he preferred it should have none. Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance. If the individual so resisted be of a not inhumane temper, and the resisting one perfectly harmless in his passivity; then, in the better moods of the former, he will endeavor charitably to construe to his imagination what proves impossible to be solved by his judgment. Even so, for the most part, I regarded Bartleby and his ways. Poor fellow! thought I, he means no mischief; it is plain he intends no insolence; his aspect sufciently evinces that his eccentricities are involuntary. He is useful to me. I can get along with him. If I turn him away, the chances are he will fall in with some less indulgent employer, and then he will be rudely treated, and perhaps driven forth miserably to starve. Yes. Here I can cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval. To befriend Bartleby; to humor him in his strange wilfulness, will cost me little or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a sweet morsel for my conscience. But this mood was not invariable
9. Favorable vote.
50
55
60
65
70
with me. The passiveness of Bartleby sometimes irritated me. I felt strangely goaded on to encounter him in new opposition, to elicit some angry spark from him answerable to my own. But indeed I might as well have essayed to strike re with my knuckles against a bit of Windsor soap.1 But one afternoon the evil impulse in me mastered me, and the following little scene ensued: Bartleby, said I, when those papers are all copied, I will compare them with you. I would prefer not to. How? Surely you do not mean to persist in that mulish vagary? No answer. I threw open the folding-doors near by, and turning upon Turkey and Nippers, exclaimed in an excited manner He says, a second time, he wont examine his papers. What do you think of it, Turkey? It was afternoon, be it remembered. Turkey sat glowing like a brass boiler, his bald head steaming, his hands reeling among his blotted papers. Think of it? roared Turkey; I think Ill just step behind his screen, and black his eyes for him! So saying, Turkey rose to his feet and threw his arms into a pugilistic position. He was hurrying away to make good his promise, when I detained him, alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing Turkeys combativeness after dinner. Sit down, Turkey, said I, and hear what Nippers has to say. What do you think of it, Nippers? Would I not be justied in immediately dismissing Bartleby? Excuse me, that is for you to decide, sir. I think his conduct quite unusual, and indeed unjust, as regards Turkey and myself. But it may only be a passing whim. Ah, exclaimed I, you have strangely changed your mind thenyou speak very gently of him now. All beer, cried Turkey; gentleness is effects of beerNippers and I dined together today. You see how gentle I am, sir. Shall I go and black his eyes? You refer to Bartleby, I suppose. No, not today, Turkey, I replied; pray, put up your sts. 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 ofce. Bartleby, said I, Ginger Nut is away; just step round to the Post Ofce, wont you? (it was but a three minutes walk,) and see if there is anything 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!
1. Scented soap, usually brown.
HERMAN MELVILLE

75
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 xed fact of my chambers, that a pale young scrivener, by the name of Bartleby, had 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 toin other words, that he would refuse point-blank. As days passed on, I became considerably reconciled to Bartleby. His steadiness, his freedom from all dissipation, his incessant industry (except when he chose to throw himself into a standing revery behind his screen), his great stillness, his unalterableness of demeanor under all circumstances, made him a valuable acquisition. One prime thing was this,he was always there; rst in the morning, continually through the day, and the last at night. I had a singular condence in his honesty. I felt my most precious papers perfectly safe in his hands. Sometimes to be sure I could not, for the very soul of me, avoid falling into sudden spasmodic passions with him. For it was exceeding difcult to bear in mind all the time those strange peculiarities, privileges, and unheard of exemptions, forming the tacit stipulations on Bartlebys part under which he remained in my ofce. Now and then, in the eagerness of dispatching pressing business, I would inadvertently summon Bartleby, in a short, rapid tone, to put his nger, say, on the incipient tie of a bit of red tape with which I was about compressing some papers. Of course, from behind the screen the usual answer, I prefer not to, was sure to come; and then, how could a human creature with the common inrmities of our nature, refrain from bitterly exclaiming upon such perversenesssuch unreasonableness? However, every added repulse of this sort which I received only tended to lessen the probability of my repeating the inadvertence. Here it must be said, that according to the custom of most legal gentlemen occupying chambers in densely-populated law buildings, there were several keys to my door. One was kept by a woman residing in the attic, which person weekly scrubbed and daily swept and dusted my apartments. Another was kept by Turkey for convenience sake. The third I sometimes carried in my own pocket. The fourth I knew not who had.
80
85
Now, one Sunday morning I happened to go to Trinity Church, to hear a celebrated preacher, and nding myself rather early on the ground, I thought I would walk round to my chambers for a while. Luckily I had my key with me; but upon applying it to the lock, I found it resisted by something inserted from the inside. Quite surprised, I called out; when to my consternation a key was turned from within; and thrusting his lean visage at me, and holding the door ajar, the apparition of Bartleby appeared, in his shirt sleeves, and otherwise in a strangely tattered dishabille, saying quietly that he was sorry, but he was deeply engaged just then, andpreferred not admitting me at present. In a brief word or two, he moreover added, that perhaps I had better walk round the block two or three times, and by that time he would probably have concluded his affairs. Now, the utterly unsurmised appearance of Bartleby, tenanting my lawchambers of a Sunday morning, with his cadaverously gentlemanly nonchalance, yet withal rm and self-possessed, had such a strange effect upon me, that incontinently I slunk away from my own door, and did as desired. But not without sundry twinges of impotent rebellion against the mild effrontery of this unaccountable scrivener. Indeed, it was his wonderful mildness, chiey, which not only disarmed me, but unmanned me, as it were. For I consider that one, for the time, is sort of unmanned when he tranquilly permits his hired clerk to dictate to him, and order him away from his own premises. Furthermore, I was full of uneasiness as to what Bartleby could possibly be doing in my ofce in his shirt sleeves, and in an otherwise dismantled condition of a Sunday morning. Was anything amiss going on? Nay, that was out of the question. It was not to be thought of for a moment that Bartleby was an immoral person. But what could he be doing there?copying? Nay again, whatever might be his eccentricities, Bartleby was an eminently decorous person. He would be the last man to sit down to his desk in any state approaching to nudity. Besides, it was Sunday; and there was something about Bartleby that forbade the supposition that he would by any secular occupation violate the proprieties of the day. Nevertheless, my mind was not pacied; and full of a restless curiosity, at last I returned to the door. Without hindrance I inserted my key, opened it, and entered. Bartleby was not to be seen. I looked round anxiously, peeped behind his screen; but it was very plain that he was gone. Upon more closely examining the place, I surmised that for an indenite period Bartleby must have ate, dressed, and slept in my ofce, and that too without plate, mirror, or bed. The cushioned seat of a ricketty old sofa in one corner bore the faint impress of a lean, reclining form. Rolled away under his desk, I found a blanket under the empty grate, a blacking box2 and brush; on a chair, a tin basin, with soap and a ragged towel; in a newspaper a few crumbs of ginger-nuts and a morsel of cheese. Yes, thought I, it is evident enough that Bartleby has been making his home here, keeping bachelors hall all by himself. Immediately then the thought came sweeping across me, What miserable friendlessness and loneliness are here revealed! His poverty is great; but his solitude, how horrible! Think of it. Of a Sunday, Wall Street is deserted as Petra;3 and every night of every day it is an emptiness. This building too, which of weekdays hums with industry and life, at nightfall echoes with sheer vacancy, and all through Sunday is forlorn. And here Bartleby makes his home; sole spectator of a solitude which he has seen all populousa sort of
2. Box of black shoe polish. 3. Once a ourishing Middle Eastern trade center, long in ruins.
HERMAN MELVILLE
innocent and transformed Marius brooding among the ruins of Carthage!4 For the rst time in my life a feeling of overpowering stinging melancholy seized me. Before, I had never experienced aught but a not-unpleasing sadness. The bond of a common humanity now drew me irresistibly to gloom. A fraternal melancholy! For both I and Bartleby were sons of Adam. I remembered the bright silks and sparkling faces I had seen that day, in gala trim, swan-like sailing down the Mississippi of Broadway; and I contrasted them with the pallid copyist, and thought to myself, Ah, happiness courts the light, so we deem the world is gay; but misery hides aloof, so we deem that misery there is none. These sad fancyingschimeras, doubtless, of a sick and silly brainled on to other and more special thoughts, concerning the eccentricities of Bartleby. Presentiments of strange discoveries hovered round me. The scriveners pale form appeared to me laid out, among uncaring strangers, in its shivering winding sheet. Suddenly I was attracted by Bartlebys closed desk, the key in open sight left in the lock. I mean no mischief, seek the gratication of no heartless curiosity, thought I; besides, the desk is mine, and its contents too, so I will make bold to look within. Everything was methodically arranged, the papers smoothly placed. The pigeonholes were deep, and removing the les of documents, I groped into their recesses. Presently I felt something there, and dragged it out. It was an old bandanna handkerchief, heavy and knotted. I opened it, and saw it was a savings bank. I now recalled all the quiet mysteries which I had noted in the man. I remembered that he never spoke but to answer; that though at intervals he had considerable time to himself, yet I had never seen him readingno, not even a newspaper; that for long periods he would stand looking out, at his pale window behind the screen, upon the dead brick wall; I was quite sure he never visited any refectory or eating house; while his pale face clearly indicated that he never drank beer like Turkey, or tea and coffee even, like other men; that he never went anywhere in particular that I could learn; never went out for a walk, unless indeed that was the case at present; that he had declined telling who he was, or whence he came, or whether he had any relatives in the world; that though so thin and pale, he never complained of ill health. And more than all, I remembered a certain unconscious air of pallidhow shall I call it?of pallid haughtiness, say, or rather an austere reserve about him, which had positively awed me into my tame compliance with his eccentricities, when I had feared to ask him to do the slightest incidental thing for me, even though I might know, from his long-continued motionlessness, that behind his screen he must be standing in one of those deadwall reveries of his. Revolving all these things, and coupling them with the recently discovered fact that he made my ofce his constant abiding place and home, and not forgetful of his morbid moodiness; revolving all these things, a prudential feeling
4. Gaius (or Caius) Marius (15786 B.C.E.), Roman consul and general, expelled from Rome in 88 B.C.E. by Sulla; when an ofcer of Sextilius, the governor, forbade him to land in Africa, Marius replied, Go tell him that you have seen Caius Marius sitting in exile among the ruins of Carthage, applying the example of the fortune of that city to the change of his own condition. The image was so common that a few years after Bartleby, Dickens apologizes for using it: like that lumbering Marius among the ruins of Carthage, who has sat heavy on a thousand millions of similes (The Calais Night-Mail, in The Uncommercial Traveler).
90
95
100
105
began to steal over me. My rst emotions had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just in proportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew to my imagination, did that same melancholy merge into fear, that pity into repulsion. So true it is, and so terrible too, that up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err who would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selshness of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul be rid of it. What I saw that morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim of innate and incurable disorder. I might give alms to his body; but his body did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach. I did not accomplish the purpose of going to Trinity Church that morning. Somehow, the things I had seen disqualied me for the time from churchgoing. I walked homeward, thinking what I would do with Bartleby. Finally, I resolved upon this;I would put certain calm questions to him the next morning, touching his history, &c., and if he declined to answer them openly and unreservedly (and I supposed he would prefer not), then to give him a twenty-dollar bill over and above whatever I might owe him, and tell him his services were no longer required; but that if in any other way I could assist him, I would be happy to do so, especially if he desired to return to his native place, wherever that might be, I would willingly help to defray the expenses. Moreover, if, after reaching home, he found himself at any time in want of aid, a letter from him would be sure of a reply. The next morning came. Bartleby, said I, gently calling to him behind his screen. No reply. Bartleby, said I, in a still gentler tone, come here; I am not going to ask you to do anything you would prefer not to doI simply wish to speak to you. Upon this he noiselessly slid into view. Will you tell me, Bartleby, where you were born? I would prefer not to. Will you tell me anything about yourself? I would prefer not to. But what reasonable objection can you have to speak to me? I feel friendly towards you. He did not look at me while I spoke, but kept his glance xed upon my bust of Cicero, which as I then sat, was directly behind me, some six inches above my head. What is your answer, Bartleby? said I, after waiting a considerable time for a reply, during which his countenance remained immovable, only there was the faintest conceivable tremor of the white attenuated mouth. At present I prefer to give no answer, he said, and retired into his hermitage. It was rather weak in me I confess, but his manner on this occasion nettled me. Not only did there seem to lurk in it a certain calm disdain, but his perverseness seemed ungrateful, considering the undeniable good usage and indulgence he had received from me. Again I sat ruminating what I should do. Mortied as I was at his behavior,
HERMAN MELVILLE
and resolved as I had been to dismiss him when I entered my ofce, nevertheless I strangely felt something superstitious knocking at my heart, and forbidding me to carry out my purpose, and denouncing me for a villain if I dared to breathe one bitter word against this forlornest of mankind. At last, familiarly drawing my chair behind his screen, I sat down and said: Bartleby, never mind then about revealing your history; but let me entreat you, as a friend, to comply as far as may be with the usages of this ofce. Say now you will help to examine papers tomorrow or next day: in short, say now that in a day or two you will begin to be a little reasonable:say so, Bartleby. At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable, was his mildly cadaverous reply. Just then the folding-doors opened, and Nippers approached. He seemed suffering from an unusually bad nights rest, induced by severer indigestion than common. He overheard those nal words of Bartleby. Prefer not, eh? gritted NippersId prefer him, if I were you, sir, addressing meId prefer him; Id give him preferences, the stubborn mule! What is it, sir, pray, that he prefers not to do now? Bartleby moved not a limb. Mr. Nippers, said I, Id prefer that you would withdraw for the present. Somehow, of late I had got into the way of involuntarily using this word prefer upon all sorts of not exactly suitable occasions. And I trembled to think that my contact with the scrivener had already and seriously affected me in a mental way. And what further and deeper aberration might it not yet produce? This apprehension had not been without efcacy in determining me to summary means. As Nippers, looking very sour and sulky, was departing, Turkey blandly and deferentially approached. With submission, sir, said he, yesterday I was thinking about Bartleby here, and I think that if he would but prefer to take a quart of good ale every day, it would do much towards mending him and enabling him to assist in examining his papers. So you have got the word too, said I, slightly excited. With submission, what word, sir? asked Turkey, respectfully crowding himself into the contracted space behind the screen, and by so doing making me jostle the scrivener. What word, sir? I would prefer to be left alone here, said Bartleby, as if offended at being mobbed in his privacy. Thats the word, Turkey, said Ithats it. Oh, prefer? oh yesqueer word. I never use it myself. But, sir, as I was saying, if he would but prefer Turkey, interrupted I, you will please withdraw. Oh certainly, sir, if you prefer that I should. As he opened the folding-door to retire, Nippers at his desk caught a glimpse of me, and asked whether I would prefer to have a certain paper copied on blue paper or white. He did not in the least roguishly accent the word prefer. It was plain that it involuntarily rolled from his tongue. I thought to myself, surely I must get rid of a demented man, who already has in some degree turned the tongues, if not the heads of myself and clerks. But I thought it prudent not to break the dismission at once.
110
115
120
125
130
135
The next day I noticed that Bartleby did nothing but stand at his window in his dead-wall revery. Upon asking him why he did not write, he said that he had decided upon doing no more writing. Why, how now? what next? exclaimed I, do no more writing? No more. And what is the reason? Do you not see the reason for yourself, he indifferently replied. I looked steadfastly at him, and perceived that his eyes looked dull and glazed. Instantly it occurred to me, that his unexampled diligence in copying by his dim window for the rst few weeks of his stay with me might have temporarily impaired his vision. I was touched. I said something in condolence with him. I hinted that of course he did wisely in abstaining from writing for a while; and urged him to embrace that opportunity of taking wholesome exercise in the open air. This, however, he did not do. A few days after this, my other clerks being absent, and being in a great hurry to dispatch certain letters by the mail, I thought that, having nothing else earthly to do, Bartleby would surely be less inexible than usual, and carry these letters to the post ofce. But he blankly declined. So, much to my inconvenience, I went myself. Still added days went by. Whether Bartlebys eyes improved or not, I could not say. To all appearance, I thought they did. But when I asked him if they did, he vouchsafed no answer. At all events, he would do no copying. At last, in reply to my urgings, he informed me that he had permanently given up copying. What! exclaimed I; suppose your eyes should get entirely wellbetter than ever beforewould you not copy then? I have given up copying, he answered, and slid aside. He remained, as ever, a xture in my chamber. Nayif that were possiblehe became still more of a xture than before. What was to be done? He would do nothing in the ofce: why should he stay there? In plain fact, he had now become a millstone5 to me, not only useless as a necklace, but afictive to bear. Yet I was sorry for him. I speak less than truth when I say that, on his own account, he occasioned me uneasiness. If he would but have named a single relative or friend, I would instantly have written, and urged their taking the poor fellow away to some convenient retreat. But he seemed alone, absolutely alone in the universe. A bit of wreck in the mid-Atlantic. At length, necessities connected with my business tyrannized over all other considerations. Decently as I could, I told Bartleby that in six days time he must unconditionally leave the ofce. I warned him to take measures, in the interval, for procuring some other abode. I offered to assist him in this endeavor, if he himself would but take the rst step towards a removal. And when you nally quit me, Bartleby, added I, I shall see that you go not away entirely unprovided. Six days from this hour, remember. At the expiration of that period, I peeped behind the screen, and lo! Bartleby was there. I buttoned up my coat, balanced myself; advanced slowly towards him,
5. Heavy stone for grinding grain. See Matthew 18.6: But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
HERMAN MELVILLE
touched his shoulder, and said, The time has come; you must quit this place; I am sorry for you; here is money; but you must go. I would prefer not, he replied, with his back still towards me. You must. He remained silent. Now I had an unbounded condence in this mans common honesty. He had frequently restored to me sixpences and shillings6 carelessly dropped upon the oor, for I am apt to be very reckless in such shirt-button affairs. The proceeding then which followed will not be deemed extraordinary. Bartleby, said I, I owe you twelve dollars on account; here are thirty-two; the odd twenty are yours.Will you take it? and I handed the bills towards him. But he made no motion. I will leave them here then, putting them under a weight on the table. Then taking my hat and cane and going to the door I tranquilly turned and added After you have removed your things from these ofces, Bartleby, you will of course lock the doorsince everyone is now gone for the day but youand if you please, slip your key underneath the mat, so that I may have it in the morning. I shall not see you again; so good-bye to you. If hereafter in your new place of abode I can be of any service to you, do not fail to advise me by letter. Goodbye, Bartleby, and fare you well. But he answered not a word; like the last column of some ruined temple, he remained standing mute and solitary in the middle of the otherwise deserted room. As I walked home in a pensive mood, my vanity got the better of my pity. I could not but highly plume myself on my masterly management in getting rid of Bartleby. Masterly I call it, and such it must appear to any dispassionate thinker. The beauty of my procedure seemed to consist in its perfect quietness. There was no vulgar bullying, no bravado of any sort, no choleric hectoring, and striding to and fro across the apartment, jerking out vehement commands for Bartleby to bundle himself off with his beggarly traps.7 Nothing of the kind. Without loudly bidding Bartleby departas an inferior genius might have done I assumed the ground that depart he must; and upon that assumption built all I had to say. The more I thought over my procedure, the more I was charmed with it. Nevertheless, next morning, upon awakening, I had my doubts,I had somehow slept off the fumes of vanity. One of the coolest and wisest hours a man has is just after he awakes in the morning. My procedure seemed as sagacious as ever,but only in theory. How it would prove in practicethere was the rub. It was truly a beautiful thought to have assumed Bartlebys departure; but, after all, that assumption was simply my own, and none of Bartlebys. The great point was, not whether I had assumed that he would quit me, but whether he would prefer so to do. He was more a man of preferences than assumptions. After breakfast, I walked downtown, arguing the probabilities pro and con. One moment I thought it would prove a miserable failure, and Bartleby would be found all alive at my ofce as usual; the next moment it seemed certain that I should see his chair empty. And so I kept veering about. At the corner of Broadway and Canal Street, I saw quite an excited group of people standing in earnest conversation.
6. Coins. 7. Personal belongings, luggage.
140
145
150
155
Ill take odds he doesnt, said a voice as I passed. Doesnt go?done! said I, put up your money. I was instinctively putting my hand in my pocket to produce my own, when I remembered that this was an election day. The words I had overheard bore no reference to Bartleby, but to the success or non-success of some candidate for the mayoralty. In my intent frame of mind, I had, as it were, imagined that all Broadway shared in my excitement, and were debating the same question with me. I passed on, very thankful that the uproar of the street screened my momentary absent-mindedness. As I had intended, I was earlier than usual at my ofce 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 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 ascendency, for all my chang, I could not completely escape, I slowly went downstairs 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 anything 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 ofce 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.8 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. Bartleby, said I, entering the ofce, with a quietly severe expression, I am seriously displeased. I am pained, Bartleby. I had thought better of you. I had imagined you of such a gentlemanly organization, that in any delicate dilemma a slight hint would sufcein short, an assumption. But it appears I am deceived. Why, I added, unaffectedly starting, you have not even touched that money yet, pointing to it, just where I had left it the evening previous. He answered nothing.
8. In fencing, a successful thrust to the opponents body.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Will you, or will you not, quit me? I now demanded in a sudden passion, advancing close to him. I would prefer not to quit you, he replied, gently emphasizing the not. What earthly right have you to stay here? Do you pay any rent? Do you pay my taxes? Or is this property yours? He answered nothing. Are you ready to go on and write now? Are your eyes recovered? Could you copy a small paper for me this morning? or help examine a few lines? or step round to the post ofce? In a word, will you do anything at all, to give a coloring to your refusal to depart the premises? He silently retired into his hermitage. I was now in such a state of nervous resentment that I thought it but prudent to check myself at present from further demonstrations. Bartleby and I were alone. I remembered the tragedy of the unfortunate Adams and the still more unfortunate Colt in the solitary ofce of the latter;9 and how poor Colt, being dreadfully incensed by Adams, and imprudently permitting himself to get wildly excited, was at unawares hurried into his fatal actan act which certainly no man could possibly deplore more than the actor himself. Often it had occurred to me in my ponderings upon the subject, that had that altercation taken place in the public street, or at a private residence, it would not have terminated as it did. It was the circumstance of being alone in a solitary ofce, up stairs, of a building entirely unhallowed by humanizing domestic associationsan uncarpeted ofce, doubtless, of a dusty, haggard sort of appearance;this it must have been, which greatly helped to enhance the irritable desperation of the hapless Colt. But when this old Adam1 of resentment rose in me and tempted me concerning Bartleby, I grappled him and threw him. How? Why, simply by recalling the divine injunction: A new commandment2 give I unto you, that ye love one another. Yes, this it was that saved me. Aside from higher considerations, charity often operates as a vastly wise and prudent principlea great safeguard to its possessor. Men have committed murder for jealousys sake, and angers sake, and hatreds sake, and selshness sake, and spiritual prides sake; but no man that ever I heard of, ever committed a diabolical murder for sweet charitys sake. Mere self-interest, then, if no better motive can be enlisted, should, especially with high-tempered men, prompt all beings to charity and philanthropy. At any rate, upon the occasion in question, I strove to drown my exasperated feelings towards the scrivener by benevolently construing his conduct. Poor fellow, poor fellow! thought I, he dont mean anything; and besides, he has seen hard times, and ought to be indulged. I endeavored also immediately to occupy myself, and at the same time to comfort my despondency. I tried to fancy that in the course of the morning, at such time as might prove agreeable to him, Bartleby, of his own free accord,
9. In 1841, John C. Colt, brother of the famous gunmaker, unintentionally killed Samuel Adams, a printer, when he hit him on the head during a ght. 1. Sinful element in human nature, see e.g., Invocation of Blessing on the Child, in the Book of Common Prayer: Grant that the old Adam in this child may be so buried, that the new man may be raised up in him. Christ is sometimes called the new Adam. 2. In John 13.34, where, however, the phrasing is I give unto . . .
160
165
would emerge from his hermitage, and take up some decided line of march in the direction of the door. But no. Half-past twelve oclock came; Turkey began to glow in the face, overturn his inkstand, and become generally obstreperous; Nippers abated down into quietude and courtesy; Ginger Nut munched his noon apple; and Bartleby remained standing at his window in one of his profoundest dead-wall reveries. Will it be credited? Ought I to acknowledge it? That afternoon I left the ofce without saying one further word to him. Some days now passed, during which, at leisure intervals I looked a little into Edwards on the Will, and Priestley on Necessity.3 Under the circumstances, those books induced a salutary feeling. Gradually I slid into the persuasion that these troubles of mine touching the scrivener, had been all predestinated from eternity, and Bartleby was billeted upon me for some mysterious purpose of an all-wise Providence, which it was not for a mere mortal like me to fathom. Yes, Bartleby, stay there behind your screen, thought I; I shall persecute you no more; you are harmless and noiseless as any of these old chairs; in short, I never feel so private as when I know you are here. At least I see it, I feel it; I penetrate to the predestinated purpose of my life. I am content. Others may have loftier parts to enact; but my mission in this world, Bartleby, is to furnish you with ofceroom for such period as you may see t to remain. I believe that this wise and blessed frame of mind would have continued with me, had it not been for the unsolicited and uncharitable remarks obtruded upon me by my professional friends who visited the rooms. But thus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wears out at last the best resolves of the more generous. Though to be sure, when I reected upon it, it was not strange that people entering my ofce should be struck by the peculiar aspect of the unaccountable Bartleby, and so be tempted to throw out some sinister observations concerning him. Sometimes an attorney having business with me, and calling at my ofce, and nding no one but the scrivener there, would undertake to obtain some sort of precise information from him touching my whereabouts; but without heeding his idle talk, Bartleby would remain standing immovable in the middle of the room. So after contemplating him in that position for a time, the attorney would depart, no wiser than he came. Also, when a Reference4 was going on, and the room full of lawyers and witnesses and business was driving fast; some deeply occupied legal gentleman present, seeing Bartleby wholly unemployed, would request him to run round to his (the legal gentlemans) ofce and fetch some papers for him. Thereupon, Bartleby would tranquilly decline, and yet remain idle as before. Then the lawyer would give a great stare, and turn to me. And what could I say? At last I was made aware that all through the circle of my professional acquaintance, a whisper of wonder was running round, having reference to the strange creature I kept at my ofce. This worried me very much. And as the idea came upon me of his
3. Jonathan Edwards (17031758), New England Calvinist theologian and revivalist, in The Freedom of the Will (1754), argued that human beings are not in fact free, for though they choose according to the way they see things, that way is predetermined (by biography, environment, and character), and they act out of personality rather than by will. Joseph Priestley (17331804), dissenting preacher, scientist, grammarian, and philosopher, in The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity (1777), argued that free will is theologically objectionable, metaphysically incomprehensible, and morally undesirable. 4. Consultation or committee meeting.
HERMAN MELVILLE
possibly turning out a long-lived man, and keep occupying my chambers, and denying my authority; and perplexing my visitors; and scandalizing my professional reputation; and casting a general gloom over the premises; keeping soul and body together to the last upon his savings (for doubtless he spent but half a dime a day), and in the end perhaps outlive me, and claim possession of my ofce by right of his perpetual occupancy: as all these dark anticipations crowded upon me more and more, and my friends continually intruded their relentless remarks upon the apparition in my room; a great change was wrought in me. I resolved to gather all my faculties together, and forever rid me of this intolerable incubus.5 Ere revolving any complicated project, however, adapted to this end, I rst simply suggested to Bartleby the propriety of his permanent departure. In a calm and serious tone, I commended 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 paperweight 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 ofces; I will move elsewhere; and give him fair notice, that if I nd him on my new premises I will then proceed against him as a common trespasser. Acting accordingly, next day I thus addressed him: I nd these chambers too far from the City Hall; the air is unwholesome. In a word, I propose to remove my ofces 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.
5. Evil spirit.
170
175
180
185
190
I re-entered, with my hand in my pocketandand my heart in my mouth. Good-bye, Bartleby; I am goinggood-bye, and God some way bless you; and take that, slipping something in his hand. But it dropped upon the oor, and then,strange to sayI 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 mehe is no relation or apprentice of mine, that you should hold me responsible for him. In mercys 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. All is over with him, by this time, thought I at last, when through another week no further intelligence reached me. But coming to my room the day after, I found several persons waiting at my door in a high state of nervous excitement. Thats the manhere he comes, cried the foremost one, whom I recognized as the lawyer who had previously called upon me alone. You must take him away, sir, at once, cried a portly person among them, advancing upon me, and whom I knew to be the landlord of No. Wall Street. These gentlemen, my tenants, cannot stand it any longer; Mr. B pointing to the lawyer, has turned him out of his room, and he now persists in haunting the building generally, sitting upon the banisters of the stairs by day, and sleeping in the entry by night. Everybody is concerned; clients are leaving the ofces; some fears are entertained of a mob; something you must do, and that without delay. Aghast at this torrent, I fell back before it, and would fain have locked myself in my new quarters. In vain I persisted that Bartleby was nothing to meno more than to anyone else. In vain:I was the last person known to have anything to do with him, and they held me to the terrible account. Fearful then of being exposed in the papers (as one person present obscurely threatened) I considered the matter, and at length said, that if the lawyer would give me a condential interview with the scrivener, in his (the lawyers) own room, I would that afternoon strive my best to rid them of the nuisance they complained of. Going upstairs to my old haunt, there was Bartleby silently sitting upon the banister at the landing.
HERMAN MELVILLE
What are you doing here, Bartleby? said I. Sitting upon the banister, he mildly replied. I motioned him into the lawyers room, who then left us. Bartleby, said I, are you aware that you are the cause of great tribulation to me, by persisting in occupying the entry after being dismissed from the ofce? No answer. Now one of two things must take place. Either you must do something, or something must be done to you. Now what sort of business would you like to engage in? Would you like to re-engage in copying for someone? No; I would prefer not to make any change. Would you like a clerkship in a drygoods store? There is too much connement about that. No, I would not like a clerkship; but I am not particular. Too much connement, I cried, why you keep yourself conned all the time! I would prefer not to take a clerkship, he rejoined, as if to settle that little item at once. How would a bartenders business suit you? There is no trying of the eyesight in that. I would not like it at all; though, as I said before, I am not particular. His unwonted wordiness inspirited me. I returned to the charge. Well then, would you like to travel through the country collecting bills for the merchants? That would improve your health. No, I would prefer to be doing something else. How then would going as a companion to Europe, to entertain some young gentleman with your conversation,how would that suit you? Not at all. It does not strike me that there is anything denite about that. I like to be stationary. But I am not particular. Stationary you shall be then, I cried, now losing all patience, and for the rst time in all my exasperating connection with him fairly ying into a passion. If you do not go away from these premises before night, I shall feel bound indeed I am boundtototo quit the premises myself! I rather absurdly concluded, knowing not with what possible threat to try to frighten his immobility into compliance. Despairing of all further efforts, I was precipitately leaving him, when a nal thought occurred to meone which had not been wholly unindulged before. Bartleby, said I, in the kindest tone I could assume under such exciting circumstances, will you go home with me nownot to my ofce, but my dwellingand remain there till we can conclude upon some convenient arrangement for you at our leisure? Come, let us start now, right away. No: at present I would prefer not to make any change at all. I answered nothing; but effectually dodging everyone by the suddenness and rapidity of my ight, rushed from the building, ran up Wall Street toward Broadway, and jumping into the rst omnibus was soon removed from pursuit. As soon as tranquillity returned I distinctly perceived that I had now done all that I possibly could, both in respect to the demands of the landlord and his tenants, and with regard to my own desire and sense of duty, to benet Bartleby, and shield him from rude persecution. I now strove to be entirely carefree and quiescent; and my conscience justied me in the attempt; though indeed it was not
195
200
205
210
215
220
so successful as I could have wished. So fearful was I of being again hunted out by the incensed landlord and his exasperated tenants, that, surrendering my business to Nippers, for a few days I drove about the upper part of the town and through the suburbs, in my rockaway;6 crossed over to Jersey City and Hoboken, and paid fugitive visits to Manhattanville and Astoria. In fact I almost lived in my rockaway for the time. When again I entered my ofce, lo, a note from the landlord lay upon the desk. I opened it with trembling hands. It informed me that the writer had sent to the police, and had Bartleby removed to the Tombs as a vagrant. Moreover, since I knew more about him than anyone else, he wished me to appear at that place, and make a suitable statement of the facts. These tidings had a conicting effect upon me. At rst I was indignant; but at last almost approved. The landlords energetic, summary disposition had led him to adopt a procedure which I do not think I would have decided upon myself; and yet as a last resort, under such peculiar circumstances, it seemed the only plan. As I afterwards learned, the poor scrivener, when told that he must be conducted to the Tombs, offered not the slightest obstacle, but in his pale unmoving way, silently acquiesced. Some of the compassionate and curious bystanders joined the party; and headed by one of the constables arm in arm with Bartleby, the silent procession led its way through all the noise, and heat, and joy of the roaring thoroughfares at noon. The same day I received the note I went to the Tombs, or to speak more properly, the Halls of Justice. Seeking the right ofcer, I stated the purpose of my call, and was informed that the individual I described was indeed within. I then assured the functionary that Bartleby was a perfectly honest man, and greatly to be compassionated, however unaccountably eccentric. I narrated all I knew, and closed by suggesting the idea of letting him remain in as indulgent connement as possible till something less harsh might be donethough indeed I hardly knew what. At all events, if nothing else could be decided upon, the alms-house must receive him. I then begged to have an interview. Being under no disgraceful charge, and quite serene and harmless in all his ways, they had permitted him freely to wander about the prison, and especially in the inclosed grass-platted yards thereof. And so I found him there, standing all alone in the quietest of the yards, his face towards a high wall, while all around, from the narrow slits of the jail windows, I thought I saw peering out upon him the eyes of murderers and thieves. Bartleby! I know you, he said, without looking round,and I want nothing to say to you. It was not I that brought you here, Bartleby, said I, keenly pained at his implied suspicion. And to you, this should not be so vile a place. Nothing reproachful attaches to you by being here. And see, it is not so sad a place as one might think. Look, there is the sky, and here is the grass. I know where I am, he replied, but would say nothing more, and so I left him. As I entered the corridor again, a broad meat-like man, in an apron, accosted
6. A light, four-wheeled carriage.
HERMAN MELVILLE
me, and jerking his thumb over his shoulder saidIs that your friend? Yes. Does he want to starve? If he does, let him live on the prison fare, thats all. Who are you? asked I, not knowing what to make of such an unofciallyspeaking person in such a place. I am the grub-man. Such gentlemen as have friends here, hire me to provide them with something good to eat. Is this so? said I, turning to the turnkey. He said it was. Well then, said I, slipping some silver into the grub-mans hands (for so they called him). I want you to give particular attention to my friend there; let him have the best dinner you can get. And you must be as polite to him as possible. Introduce me, will you? said the grub-man, looking at me with an expression which seemed to say he was all impatience for an opportunity to give a specimen of his breeding. Thinking it would prove of benet to the scrivener, I acquiesced; and asking the grub-man his name, went up with him to Bartleby. Bartleby, this is Mr. Cutlets; you will nd him very useful to you. Your sarvant, sir, your sarvant, said the grub-man, making a low salutation behind his apron. Hope you nd it pleasant here, sir;spacious groundscool apartments, sirhope youll stay with us some timetry to make it agreeable. May Mrs. Cutlets and I have the pleasure of your company to dinner, sir, in Mrs. Cutlets private room? I prefer not to dine today, said Bartleby, turning away. It would disagree with me; I am unused to dinners. So saying he slowly moved to the other side of the inclosure, and took up a position fronting the dead-wall. Hows this? said the grub-man, addressing me with a stare of astonishment. Hes odd, aint he? I think he is a little deranged, said I, sadly. Deranged? deranged is it? Well now, upon my word, I thought that friend of yourn was a gentleman forger; they are always pale and genteel-like, them forgers. I cant help pity emcant help it, sir. Did you know Monroe Edwards?7 he added touchingly, and paused. Then laying his hand pityingly on my shoulder, sighed, he died of consumption at Sing Sing. So you werent acquainted with Monroe? No, I was never socially acquainted with any forgers. But I cannot stop longer. Look to my friend yonder. You will not lose by it. I will see you again. Some few days after this, I again obtained admission to the Tombs, and went through the corridors in quest of Bartleby; but without nding him. I saw him coming from his cell not long ago, said a turnkey, may be hes gone to loiter in the yards. So I went in that direction. Are you looking for the silent man? said another turnkey passing me. Yonder he liessleeping in the yard there. Tis not twenty minutes since I saw him lie down.
7. Famously amboyant swindler and forger (18081847) who died in Sing Sing prison, north of New York City.
225
230
235
240
245
250
The yard was entirely quiet. It was not accessible to the common prisoners. The surrounding walls, of amazing thickness, kept off all sounds behind them. The Egyptian character of the masonry weighed upon me with its gloom. But a soft imprisoned turf grew under foot. The heart of the eternal pyramids, it seemed, wherein, by some strange magic, through the clefts, grass seed, dropped by birds, had sprung. Strangely huddled at the base of the wall, his knees drawn up, and lying on his side, his head touching the cold stones, I saw the wasted Bartleby. But nothing stirred. I paused; then went close up to him; stooped over, and saw that his dim eyes were open; otherwise he seemed profoundly sleeping. Something prompted me to touch him. I felt his hand, when a tingling shiver ran up my arm and down my spine to my feet. The round face of the grub-man peered upon me now. His dinner is ready. Wont he dine today, either? Or does he live without dining? Lives without dining, said I, and closed the eyes. Eh!Hes asleep, aint he? With kings and counsellors,8 murmured I. There would seem little need for proceeding further in this history. Imagination will readily supply the meager recital of poor Bartlebys interment. But ere parting with the reader, let me say, that if this little narrative has sufciently interested him, to awaken curiosity as to who Bartleby was, and what manner of life he led prior to the present narrators making his acquaintance, I can only reply, that in such curiosity I fully share, but am wholly unable to gratify it. Yet here I hardly know whether I should divulge one little item of rumor, which came to my ear a few months after the scriveners decease. Upon what basis it rested, I could never ascertain; and hence, how true it is I cannot now tell. But inasmuch as this vague report has not been without a certain strange suggestive interest to me, however sad, it may prove the same with some others; and so I will briey mention it. The report was this: that Bartleby had been a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Ofce at Washington, from which he had been suddenly removed by a change in the administration. When I think over this rumor, I cannot adequately express the emotions which seize me. Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men? Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness, can any business seem more tted to heighten it than that of continually handling these dead letters, and assorting them for the ames? For by the cartload they are annually burned. Sometimes from out the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring:the nger it was meant for, perhaps, molders in the grave; a banknote sent in swiftest charity:he whom it would relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more; pardon for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; good tidings for those who died stied by unrelieved calamities. On errands of life, these letters speed to death. Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity! 1853
8. I.e., dead. See Job 3.1314: then had I been at rest, With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves.
DORIS LESSING
Our Friend Judith 179
QUESTIONS
1. By the end of Bartleby, the Scrivener, what does the reader know for certain about Bartleby? Why do you think Melville provides so little explicit information about this character? 2. The narrator tells us that his clerks nicknames are expressive of their respective persons or characters, but he explains only Turkeys nickname in this regard. How would you explain the appropriateness of Nippers nickname? of Ginger Nuts? 3. One of the few words Bartleby utters is prefer, and the other characters nd themselves using this queer word. What can we learn about Bartleby and the others by the ways in which they use the word prefer?
DORIS LESSING
Our Friend Judith

I stopped inviting Judith to meet people when a Canadian woman remarked, with the satised fervour of one who has at last pinned a label on a rare specimen: She is, of course, one of your typical English spinsters. This was a few weeks after an American sociologist, having elicited from Judith the facts that she was fortyish, unmarried, and living alone, had enquired of me: I suppose she has given up? Given up what? I asked; and the subsequent discussion was unrewarding. Judith did not easily come to parties. She would come after pressure, not so muchone feltto do one a favour, but in order to correct what she believed to be a defect in her character. I really ought to enjoy meeting new people more than I do, she said once. We reverted to an earlier pattern of our friendship: odd evenings together, an occasional visit to the cinema, or she would telephone to say: Im on my way past you to the British Museum. Would you care for a cup of coffee with me? I have twenty minutes to spare. It is characteristic of Judith that the word spinster, used of her, provoked fascinated speculation about other people. There are my aunts, for instance: aged seventy-odd, both unmarried, one an ex-missionary from China, one a retired matron of a famous London hospital. These two old ladies live together under the shadow of the cathedral in a country town. They devote much time to the Church, to good causes, to letter writing with friends all over the world, to the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren of relatives. It would be a mistake, however, on entering a house in which nothing has been moved for fty years, to diagnose a condition of fossilised late-Victorian integrity. They read every book review in the Observer or the Times,1 so that I recently got a letter from Aunt Rose enquiring whether I did not think that the author of On the Road2 was not perhaps?exaggerating his difculties. They know a good deal about music, and write letters of encouragement to young composers they feel are being neglectedYou must understand that anything new and original takes time to
1. Prestigious London newspapers representing roughly the younger, more liberal establishment and the Establishment proper, respectively. 2. Jack Kerouac (19221969), a leading writer of the Beat Generation, 1950s forerunners of the hippies. Kerouac heroes felt themselves completely cut off from and victimized by American society.
10
be understood. Well-informed and critical Tories, they are as likely to dispatch telegrams of protest to the Home Secretary3 as letters of support. These ladies, my aunts Emily and Rose, are surely what is meant by the phrase English spinster. And yet, once the connection has been pointed out, there is no doubt that Judith and they are spiritual cousins, if not sisters. Therefore it follows that ones pitying admiration for women who have supported manless and uncomforted lives needs a certain modication? One will, of course, never know; and I feel now that it is entirely my fault that I shall never know. I had been Judiths friend for upward of ve years before the incident occurred which I involuntarily thought ofstupidly enoughas the rst time Judiths mask slipped. A mutual friend, Betty, had been given a cast-off Dior 4 dress. She was too short for it. Also she said: Its not a dress for a married woman with three children and a talent for cooking. I dont know why not, but it isnt. Judith was the right build. Therefore one evening the three of us met by appointment in Judiths bedroom, with the dress. Neither Betty nor I was surprised at the renewed discovery that Judith was beautiful. We had both often caught each other, and ourselves, in moments of envy when Judiths calm and severe face, her undemonstratively perfect body, succeeded in making everyone else in a room or a street look cheap. Judith is tall, small-breasted, slender. Her light brown hair is parted in the centre and cut straight around her neck. A high straight forehead, straight nose, a full grave mouth are setting for her eyes, which are green, large and prominent. Her lids are very white, fringed with gold, and moulded close over the eyeball, so that in prole she has the look of a staring gilded mask. The dress was of dark green glistening stuff, cut straight, with a sort of loose tunic. It opened simply at the throat. In it Judith could of course evoke nothing but classical images. Diana, perhaps, back from the hunt, in a relaxed moment? A rather intellectual wood nymph who had opted for an afternoon in the British Museum Reading Room? Something like that. Neither Betty nor I said a word, since Judith was examining herself in a long mirror, and must know she looked magnicent. Slowly she drew off the dress and laid it aside. Slowly she put on the old cord skirt and woollen blouse she had taken off. She must have surprised a resigned glance between us, for she then remarked, with the smallest of mocking smiles: One surely ought to stay in character, wouldnt you say? She added, reading the words out of some invisible book, written not by her, since it was a very vulgar book, but perhaps by one of us: It does everything for me, I must admit. After seeing you in it, Betty cried out, defying her, I cant bear for anyone else to have it. I shall simply put it away. Judith shrugged, rather irritated. In the shapeless skirt and blouse, and without makeup, she stood smiling at us, a woman at whom forty-nine out of fty people would not look twice. A second revelatory incident occurred soon after. Betty telephoned me to say that Judith had a kitten. Did I know that Judith adored cats? No, but of course she would, I said. Betty lived in the same street as Judith and saw more of her than I did. I was kept posted about the growth and habits of the cat and its effect on Judiths life.
3. Head of the British government department responsible for domestic matters. 4. Famous French designer of high fashions.
DORIS LESSING
She remarked for instance that she felt it was good for her to have a tie and some responsibility. But no sooner was the cat out of kittenhood than all the neighbours complained. It was a tomcat, ungelded, and making every night hideous. Finally the landlord said that either the cat or Judith must go, unless she was prepared to have the cat xed.5 Judith wore herself out trying to nd some person, anywhere in Britain, who would be prepared to take the cat. This person would, however, have to sign a written statement not to have the cat xed. When Judith took the cat to the vet to be killed, Betty told me she cried for twenty-four hours. She didnt think of compromising? After all, perhaps the cat might have preferred to live, if given the choice? Is it likely Id have the nerve to say anything so sloppy to Judith? Its the nature of a male cat to rampage lustfully about, and therefore it would be morally wrong for Judith to have the cat xed, simply to suit her own convenience. She said that? She wouldnt have to say it, surely? A third incident was when she allowed a visiting young American, living in Paris, the friend of a friend and scarcely known to her, to use her at while she visited her parents over Christmas. The young man and his friends lived it up for ten days of alcohol and sex and marijuana, and when Judith came back it took a week to get the place clean again and the furniture mended. She telephoned twice to Paris, the rst time to say that he was a disgusting young thug and if he knew what was good for him he would keep out of her way in the future; the second time to apologise for losing her temper. I had a choice either to let someone use my at, or to leave it empty. But having chosen that you should have it, it was clearly an unwarrantable infringement of your liberty to make any conditions at all. I do most sincerely ask your pardon. The moral aspects of the matter having been made clear, she was irritated rather than not to receive letters of apology from himfulsome, embarrassed, but above all, bafed. It was the note of curiosity in the lettershe even suggested coming over to get to know her betterthat irritated her most. What do you suppose he means? she said to me. He lived in my at for ten days. One would have thought that should be enough, wouldnt you? The facts about Judith, then, are all in the open, unconcealed, and plain to anyone who cares to study them; or, as it became plain she feels, to anyone with the intelligence to interpret them. She has lived for the last twenty years in a small two-roomed at high over a busy West London street. The at is shabby and badly heated. The furniture is old, was never anything but ugly, is now frankly rickety and fraying. She has an income of two hundred pounds6 a year from a dead uncle. She lives on this and what she earns from her poetry, and from lecturing on poetry to night classes and extramural university classes. She does not smoke or drink, and eats very little, from preference, not selfdiscipline. She studied poetry and biology at Oxford, with distinction. She is a Castlewell. That is, she is a member of one of the academic upper5. Neutered. 6. About one-third or even one-half of a subsistence income.
15
20
25
30
middleclass families, which have been producing for centuries a steady supply of brilliant but sound men and women who are the backbone of the arts and sciences in Britain. She is on cool good terms with her family, who respect her and leave her alone. She goes on long walking tours, by herself, in such places as Exmoor or West Scotland. Every three or four years she publishes a volume of poems. The walls of her at are completely lined with books. They are scientic, classical and historical; there is a great deal of poetry and some drama. There is not one novel. When Judith says: Of course I dont read novels, this does not mean that novels have no place, or a small place, in literature; or that people should not read novels; but that it must be obvious she cant be expected to read novels. I had been visiting her at for years before I noticed two long shelves of books, under a window, each shelf lled with the works of a single writer. The two writers are not, to put it at the mildest, the kind one would associate with Judith. They are mild, reminiscent, vague and whimsical. Typical English belles-lettres, in fact, and by denition abhorrent to her. Not one of the books in the two shelves has been read; some of the pages are still uncut.7 Yet each book is inscribed or dedicated to her: gratefully, admiringly, sentimentally and, more than once, amorously. In short, it is open to anyone who cares to examine these two shelves, and to work out dates, to conclude that Judith from the age of fteen to twentyve had been the beloved young companion of one elderly literary gentleman, and from twenty-ve to thirty-ve the inspiration of another. During all that time she had produced her own poetry, and the sort of poetry, it is quite safe to deduce, not at all likely to be admired by her two admirers. Her poems are always cool and intellectual; that is their form, which is contradicted or supported by a gravely sensuous texture. They are poems to read often; one has to, to understand them. I did not ask Judith a direct question about these two eminent but rather fusty lovers. Not because she would not have answered, or because she would have found the question impertinent, but because such questions are clearly unnecessary. Having those two shelves of books where they are, and books she could not conceivably care for, for their own sake, is publicly giving credit where credit is due. I can imagine her thinking the thing over, and deciding it was only fair, or perhaps honest, to place the books there; and this despite the fact that she would not care at all for the same attention to be paid to her. There is something almost contemptuous in it. For she certainly despises people who feel they need attention. For instance, more than once a new emerging wave of modern young poets have discovered her as the only modern poet among their despised and wellcredited elders. This is because, since she began writing at fteen, her poems have been full of scientic, mechanical and chemical imagery. This is how she thinks, or feels. More than once has a young poet hastened to her at, to claim her as an ally, only to nd her totally and by instinct unmoved by words like modern, new,
7. As recently as the 1960s, many books were still printed on pages that had to be slit apart at the outer edge.
DORIS LESSING
contemporary. He has been outraged and wounded by her principle, so deeply rooted as to be unconscious, and to need no expression but a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders, that publicity seeking or to want critical attention is despicable. It goes without saying that there is perhaps one critic in the world she has any time for. He has sulked off, leaving her on her shelf, which she takes it for granted is her proper place, to be read by an appreciative minority. Meanwhile she gives her lectures, walks alone through London, writes her poems, and is seen sometimes at a concert or a play with a middleaged professor of Greek, who has a wife and two children. Betty and I had speculated about this professor, with such remarks as: Surely she must sometimes be lonely? Hasnt she ever wanted to marry? What about that awful moment when one comes in from somewhere at night to an empty at? It happened recently that Bettys husband was on a business trip, her children visiting, and she was unable to stand the empty house. She asked Judith for a refuge until her own home lled again. Afterwards Betty rang me up to report: Four of the ve nights Professor Adams came in about ten or so. Was Judith embarrassed? Would you expect her to be? Well, if not embarrassed, at least conscious there was a situation? No, not at all. But I must say I dont think hes good enough for her. He cant possibly understand her. He calls her Judy. Good God. Yes. But I was wondering. Suppose the other two called her Judylittle Judyimagine it! Isnt it awful? But it does rather throw a light on Judith? Its rather touching. I suppose its touching. But I was embarrassedoh, not because of the situation. Because of how she was, with him. Judy, is there another cup of tea in that pot? And she, rather daughterly and demure, pouring him one. Well yes, I can see how you felt. Three of the nights he went to her bedroom with hervery casual about it, because she was being. But he was not there in the mornings. So I asked her. You know how it is when you ask her a question. As if youve been having long conversations on that very subject for years and years, and she is merely continuing where you left off last. So when she says something surprising, one feels such a fool to be surprised? Yes. And then? I asked her if she was sorry not to have children. She said yes, but one couldnt have everything. One cant have everything, she said? Quite clearly feeling she has nearly everything. She said she thought it was a pity, because she would have brought up children very well. When you come to think of it, she would, too. I asked about marriage, but she said on the whole the role of a mistress suited her better. She used the word mistress? You must admit its the accurate word. I suppose so.
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
And then she said that while she liked intimacy and sex and everything, she enjoyed waking up in the morning alone and her own person. Yes, of course. Of course. But now shes bothered because the professor would like to marry her. Or he feels he ought. At least, hes getting all guilty and obsessive about it. She says she doesnt see the point of divorce, and anyway, surely it would be very hard on his poor old wife after all these years, particularly after bringing up two children so satisfactorily. She talks about his wife as if shes a kind of nice old charwoman, and it wouldnt be fair to sack her, you know. Anyway. What with one thing and another. Judiths going off to Italy soon in order to collect herself. But hows she going to pay for it? Luckily the Third Programmes8 commissioning her to do some arty programmes. They offered her a choice of The CidEl Thid9 you knowand the Borgias. Well, the Borghese, then. And Judith settled for the Borgias. The Borgias, I said, Judith? Yes, quite. I said that too, in that tone of voice. She saw my point. She says the epic is right up her street, whereas the Renaissance has never been on her wave length. Obviously it couldnt be, all the magnicence and cruelty and dirt. But of course chivalry and a high moral code and all those idiotically noble goings-on are right on her wave length. Is the money the same? Yes. But is it likely Judith would let money decide? No, she said that one should always choose something new, that isnt up ones street. Well, because its better for her character, and so on, to get herself unsettled by the Renaissance. She didnt say that, of course. Of course not. Judith went to Florence; and for some months postcards informed us tersely of her doings. Then Betty decided she must go by herself for a holiday. She had been appalled by the discovery that if her husband was away for a night she couldnt sleep; and when he went to Australia for three weeks, she stopped living until he came back. She had discussed this with him, and he had agreed that if she really felt the situation to be serious, he would despatch her by air, to Italy, in order to recover her self-respect. As she put it. I got this letter from her: Its no use, Im coming home. I might have known. Better face it, once youre really married youre not t for man nor beast. And if you remember what I used to be like! Well! I moped around Milan. I sunbathed in Venice, then I thought my tan was surely worth something, so I was on the point of starting an affair with another lonely soul, but I lost heart, and went to Florence to see Judith. She wasnt there. Shed gone to the Italian Riviera. I had nothing better to do, so I followed her. When I saw the place I wanted to laugh, its so much not Judith, you know, all those palms and umbrellas and gaiety at
8. British Broadcasting Corporation public radio service (and now also television channel) specializing in classical music, literature and plays, lectures, etc. 9. Approximate Castilian (standard Spanish) pronunciation of El Cid (rhymes with steed), the title of an eleventh-century soldier-hero featured in many works of literature. Borgias . . . Borghese: The Borgias were powerful Italian aristocrats, noted especially as patrons of the Catholic Church and the arts during the fteenth and sixteenth centuries. By correcting herself (Well, the Borghese, then), Betty is attempting to render the name in proper Italian; in fact the Borghese were a different Italian Renaissance family.
DORIS LESSING
all costs and ever such an ornamental blue sea. Judith is in an enormous stone room up on the hillside above the sea, with grape vines all over the place. You should see her, shes got beautiful. It seems for the last fteen years shes been going to Soho1 every Saturday morning to buy food at an Italian shop. I must have looked surprised, because she explained she liked Soho. I suppose because all that dreary vice and nudes and prostitutes and everything prove how right she is to be as she is? She told the people in the shop she was going to Italy, and the signora2 said, what a coincidence, she was going back to Italy too, and she did hope an old friend like Miss Castlewell would visit her there. Judith said to me: I felt lacking, when she used the word friend. Our relations have always been formal. Can you understand it? she said to me. For fteen years, I said to her. She said: I think I must feel its a kind of imposition, dont you know, expecting people to feel friendship for one. Well. I said: You ought to understand it, because youre like that yourself. Am I? she said. Well, think about it, I said. But I could see she didnt want to think about it. Anyway, shes here, and Ive spent a week with her. The widow Maria Rineiri inherited her mothers house, so she came home, from Soho. On the ground oor is a tatty little rosticceria3 patronised by the neighbours. They are all working people. This isnt tourist country, up on the hill. The widow lives above the shop with her little boy, a nasty little brat of about ten. Say what you like, the English are the only people who know how to bring up children, I dont care if thats insular. Judiths room is at the back, with a balcony. Underneath her room is the barbers shop, and the barber is Luigi Rineiri, the widows younger brother. Yes, I was keeping him until the last. He is about forty, tall dark handsome, a great bull, but rather a sweet fatherly bull. He has cut Judiths hair and made it lighter. Now it looks like a sort of gold helmet. Judith is all brown. The widow Rineiri has made her a white dress and a green dress. They t, for a change. When Judith walks down the street to the lower town, all the Italian males take one look at the golden girl and melt in their own oil like ice cream. Judith takes all this in her stride. She sort of acknowledges the homage. Then she strolls into the sea and vanishes into the foam. She swims ve miles every day. Naturally. I havent asked Judith whether she has collected herself, because you can see she hasnt. The widow Rineiri is matchmaking. When I noticed this I wanted to laugh, but luckily I didnt because Judith asked me, really wanting to know: Can you see me married to an Italian barber? (Not being snobbish, but stating the position, so to speak.) Well yes, I said, youre the only woman I know who I can see married to an Italian barber. Because it wouldnt matter who she married, shed always be her own person. At any rate, for a time, I said. At which she said, asperously,4 You can use phrases like for a time in England but not in Italy. Did you ever see England, at least London, as the home of licence, liberty and free love? No, neither did I, but of course shes right. Married to Luigi it would be the family, the neighbours, the church and the bambini.5 All the same shes thinking about it, believe it or not. Here shes quite different, all relaxed and free. Shes melting in the attention she gets. The widow mothers her and makes her coffee all the time, and listens to a lot of good advice about how to bring up that nasty brat of hers. Unluckily she doesnt take it. Luigi is crazy for her. At mealtimes she
1. A colorful section of London known for artists and ethnic restaurants as well as prostitutes and pornography. 2. Proprietress. 3. Grill. 4. Sharply, harshly. 5. Children.
goes to the trattoria6 in the upper square and all the workmen treat her like a goddess. Well, a lm star then. I said to her, youre mad to come home. For one thing her rent is ten bob7 a week, and you eat pasta and drink red wine till you bust for about one and sixpence. No, she said, it would be nothing but selfindulgence to stay. Why? I said. She said, shes got nothing to stay for. (Ho ho.) And besides, shes done her research on the Borghese, though so far she cant see her way to an honest presentation of the facts. What made these people tick? she wants to know. And so shes only staying because of the cat. I forgot to mention the cat. This is a town of cats. The Italians here love their cats. I wanted to feed a stray cat at the table, but the waiter said no; and after lunch, all the waiters came with trays crammed with leftover food and stray cats came from everywhere to eat. And at dark when the tourists go in to feed and the beach is emptyyou know how empty and forlorn a beach is at dusk?well cats appear from everywhere. The beach seems to move, then you see its cats. They go stalking along the thin inch of grey water at the edge of the sea, shaking their paws crossly at each step, snatching at the dead little sh, and throwing them with their mouths up on to the dry stand. Then they scamper after them. Youve never seen such a snarling and ghting. At dawn when the shing boats come in to the empty beach, the cats are there in dozens. The shermen throw them bits of sh. The cats snarl and ght over it. Judith gets up early and goes down to watch. Sometimes Luigi goes too, being tolerant. Because what he really likes is to join the evening promenade with Judith on his arm around and around the square of the upper town. Showing her off. Can you see Judith? But she does it. Being tolerant. But she smiles and enjoys the attention she gets, theres no doubt about it. She has a cat in her room. Its a kitten really, but its pregnant. Judith says she cant leave until the kittens are born. The cat is too young to have kittens. Imagine Judith. She sits on her bed in that great stone room, with her bare feet on the stone oor, and watches the cat, and tries to work out why a healthy uninhibited Italian cat always fed on the best from the rosticceria should be neurotic. Because it is. When it sees Judith watching it gets nervous and starts licking at the roots of its tail. But Judith goes on watching, and says about Italy that the reason why the English love the Italians is because the Italians make the English feel superior. They have no discipline. And thats a despicable reason for one nation to love another. Then she talks about Luigi and says he has no sense of guilt, but a sense of sin; whereas she has no sense of sin but she has guilt. I havent asked her if this has been an insuperable barrier, because judging from how she looks, it hasnt. She says she would rather have a sense of sin, because sin can be atoned for, and if she understood sin, perhaps she would be more at home with the Renaissance. Luigi is very healthy, she says, and not neurotic. He is a Catholic of course. He doesnt mind that shes an atheist. His mother has explained to him that the English are all pagans, but good people at heart. I suppose he thinks a few smart sessions with the local priest would set Judith on the right path for good and all. Meanwhile the cat walks nervously around the room, stopping to lick, and when it cant stand Judith watching it another second, it rolls over on the oor, with its paws tucked up, and rolls up its eyes, and
6. Inexpensive restaurant. 7. Shillings. There were twenty shillings to the pound; one and sixpence, below, is one and a half shillings.
DORIS LESSING
Judith scratches its lumpy pregnant stomach and tells it to relax. It makes me nervous to see her, its not like her, I dont know why. Then Luigi shouts up from the barbers shop, then he comes up and stands at the door laughing, and Judith laughs, and the widow says: Children, enjoy yourselves. And off they go, walking down to the town eating ice cream. The cat follows them. It wont let Judith out of its sight, like a dog. When she swims miles out to sea, the cat hides under a beach hut until she comes back. Then she carries it back up the hill, because that nasty little boy chases it. Well. Im coming home tomorrow thank God, to my dear old Billy, I was mad ever to leave him. There is something about Judith and Italy that has upset me, I dont know what. The point is, what on earth can Judith and Luigi talk about? Nothing. How can they? And of course it doesnt matter. So I turn out to be a prude as well. See you next week. It was my turn for a dose of the sun, so I didnt see Betty. On my way back from Rome I stopped off in Judiths resort and walked up through narrow streets to the upper town, where, in the square with the vine-covered trattoria at the corner, was a house with ROSTICCERIA written in black paint on a cracked wooden board over a low door. There was a door curtain of red beads, and ies settled on the beads. I opened the beads with my hands and looked into a small dark room with a stone counter. Loops of salami hung from metal hooks. A glass bell covered some plates of cooked meats. There were ies on the salami and on the glass bell. A few tins on the wooden shelves, a couple of pale loaves, some wine casks and an open case of sticky pale green grapes covered with fruit ies seemed to be the only stock. A single wooden table with two chairs stood in a corner, and two workmen sat there, eating lumps of sausage and bread. Through another bead curtain at the back came a short, smoothly fat, slender-limbed woman with greying hair. I asked for Miss Castlewell, and her face changed. She said in an offended, offhand way: Miss Castlewell left last week. She took a white cloth from under the counter, and icked at the ies on the glass bell. Im a friend of hers, I said, and she said: Si,8 and put her hands palm down on the counter and looked at me, expressionless. The workmen got up, gulped down the last of their wine, nodded and went. She ciaod9 them; and looked back at me. Then, since I didnt go, she called: Luigi! A shout came from the back room, there was a rattle of beads, and in came rst a wiry sharp-faced boy, and then Luigi. He was tall, heavy-shouldered, and his black rough hair was like a cap, pulled low over his brows. He looked good-natured, but at the moment uneasy. His sister said something, and he stood beside her, an ally, and conrmed: Miss Castlewell went away. I was on the point of giving up, when through the bead curtain that screened off a dazzling light eased a thin tabby cat. It was ugly and it walked uncomfortably, with its back quarters bunched up. The child suddenly let out a Ssssss through his teeth, and the cat froze. Luigi said something sharp to the child, and something encouraging to the cat, which sat down, looked straight in front of it, then began frantically licking at its anks. Miss Castlewell was offended with us, said Mrs. Rineiri suddenly, and with dignity. She left early one morning. We did not expect her to go. I said: Perhaps she had to go home and nish some work. Mrs. Rineiri shrugged, then sighed. Then she exchanged a hard look with her brother. Clearly the subject had been discussed, and closed forever.
8. Yes. 9. Said good-bye to.
70
75
80
85
Ive known Judith a long time, I said, trying to nd the right note. Shes a remarkable woman. Shes a poet. But there was no response to this at all. Meanwhile the child, with a xed bared-teeth grin, was staring at the cat, narrowing his eyes. Suddenly he let out another Ssssssss and added a short high yelp. The cat shot backwards, hit the wall, tried desperately to claw its way up the wall, came to its senses and again sat down and began its urgent, undirected licking at its fur. This time Luigi cuffed the child, who yelped in earnest, and then ran out into the street past the cat. Now that the way was clear the cat shot across the oor, up onto the counter, and bounded past Luigis shoulder and straight through the bead curtain into the barbers shop, where it landed with a thud. Judith was sorry when she left us, said Mrs. Rineiri uncertainly. She was crying. Im sure she was. And so, said Mrs. Rineiri, with nality, laying her hands down again, and looking past me at the bead curtain. That was the end. Luigi nodded brusquely at me, and went into the back. I said goodbye to Mrs. Rineiri and walked back to the lower town. In the square I saw the child, sitting on the running board of a lorry1 parked outside the trattoria, drawing in the dust with his bare toes, and directing in front of him a blank, unhappy stare. I had to go through Florence, so I went to the address Judith had been at. No, Miss Castlewell had not been back. Her papers and books were still here. Would I take them back with me to England? I made a great parcel and brought them back to England. I telephoned Judith and she said she had already written for the papers to be sent, but it was kind of me to bring them. There had seemed to be no point, she said, in returning to Florence. Shall I bring them over? I would be very grateful, of course. Judiths at was chilly, and she wore a bunchy sage-green woollen dress. Her hair was still a soft gold helmet, but she looked pale and rather pinched. She stood with her back to a single bar of electric relit because I demanded it with her legs apart and her arms folded. She contemplated me. I went to the Rineiris house. Oh. Did you? They seemed to miss you. She said nothing. I saw the cat too. Oh. Oh, I suppose you and Betty discussed it? This was with a small unfriendly smile. Well, Judith, you must see we were likely to? She gave this her consideration and said: I dont understand why people discuss other people. OhIm not criticising you. But I dont see why you are so interested. I dont understand human behaviour and Im not particularly interested. I think you should write to the Rineiris. I wrote and thanked them, of course. I dont mean that.
1. Truck.
DORIS LESSING
You and Betty have worked it out? Yes, we talked about it. We thought we should talk to you, so you should write to the Rineiris. Why? For one thing, they are both very fond of you. Fond, she said smiling. Judith, Ive never in my life felt such an atmosphere of being let down. Judith considered this. When something happens that shows one there is really a complete gulf in understanding, what is there to say? It could scarcely have been a complete gulf in understanding. I suppose you are going to say we are being interfering? Judith showed distaste. That is a very stupid word. And its a stupid idea. No one can interfere with me if I dont let them. No, its that I dont understand people. I dont understand why you or Betty should care. Or why the Rineiris should, for that matter, she added with the small tight smile. Judith! If youve behaved stupidly, theres no point in going on. You put an end to it. What happened? Was it the cat? Yes, I suppose so. But its not important. She looked at me, saw my ironical face, and said: The cat was too young to have kittens. That is all there was to it. Have it your way. But that is obviously not all there is to it. What upsets me is that I dont understand at all why I was so upset then. What happened? Or dont you want to talk about it? I dont give a damn whether I talk about it or not. You really do say the most extraordinary things, you and Betty. If you want to know, Ill tell you. What does it matter? I would like to know, of course. Of course! she said. In your place I wouldnt care. Well, I think the essence of the thing was that I must have had the wrong attitude to that cat. Cats are supposed to be independent. They are supposed to go off by themselves to have their kittens. This one didnt. It was climbing up on to my bed all one night and crying for attention. I dont like cats on my bed. In the morning I saw she was in pain. I stayed with her all that day. Then Luigihes the brother, you know. Yes. Did Betty mention him? Luigi came up to say it was time I went for a swim. He said the cat should look after itself. I blame myself very much. Thats what happens when you submerge yourself in somebody else. Her look at me was now deant; and her body showed both defensiveness and aggression. Yes. Its true. Ive always been afraid of it. And in the last few weeks Ive behaved badly. Its because I let it happen. Well, go on. I left the cat and swam. It was late, so it was only for a few minutes. When I came out of the sea the cat had followed me and had had a kitten on the beach. That little beast Michelethe son, you know?well, he always teased the poor thing, and now he had frightened her off the kitten. It was dead, though. He held it up by the tail and waved it at me as I came out of the sea. I told him to bury it. He scooped two inches of sand away and pushed the kitten inon the
90
95
100
105
110
115
120
125
beach, where people are all day. So I buried it properly. He had run off. He was chasing the poor cat. She was terried and running up the town. I ran too. I caught Michele and I was so angry I hit him. I dont believe in hitting children. Ive been feeling beastly about it ever since. You were angry. Its no excuse. I would never have believed myself capable of hitting a child. I hit him very hard. He went off, crying. The poor cat had got under a big lorry parked in the square. Then she screamed. And then a most remarkable thing happened. She screamed just once, and all at once cats just materialised. One minute there was just one cat, lying under a lorry, and the next, dozens of cats. They sat in a big circle around the lorry, all quite still, and watched my poor cat. Rather moving, I said. Why? There is no evidence one way or the other, I said in inverted commas,2 that the cats were there out of concern for a friend in trouble. No, she said energetically. There isnt. It might have been curiosity. Or anything. How do we know? However, I crawled under the lorry. There were two paws sticking out of the cats back end. The kitten was the wrong way round. It was stuck. I held the cat down with one hand and I pulled the kitten out with the other. She held out her long white hands. They were still covered with fading scars and scratches. She bit and yelled, but the kitten was alive. She left the kitten and crawled across the square into the house. Then all the cats got up and walked away. It was the most extraordinary thing Ive ever seen. They vanished again. One minute they were all there, and then they had vanished. I went after the cat, with the kitten. Poor little thing, it was covered with dustbeing wet, dont you know. The cat was on my bed. There was another kitten coming, but it got stuck too. So when she screamed and screamed I just pulled it out. The kittens began to suck. One kitten was very big. It was a nice fat black kitten. It must have hurt her. But she suddenly bit outsnapped, dont you know, like a reex action, at the back of the kittens head. It died, just like that. Extraordinary, isnt it? she said, blinking hard, her lips quivering. She was its mother, but she killed it. Then she ran off the bed and went downstairs into the shop under the counter. I called to Luigi. You know, hes Mrs. Rineiris brother. Yes, I know. He said she was too young, and she was badly frightened and very hurt. He took the alive kitten to her but she got up and walked away. She didnt want it. Then Luigi told me not to look. But I followed him. He held the kitten by the tail and he banged it against the wall twice. Then he dropped it into the rubbish heap. He moved aside some rubbish with his toe, and put the kitten there and pushed rubbish over it. Then Luigi said the cat should be destroyed. He said she was badly hurt and it would always hurt her to have kittens. He hasnt destroyed her. Shes still alive. But it looks to me as if he were right. Yes, I expect he was. What upset youthat he killed the kitten? Oh no, I expect the cat would if he hadnt. But that isnt the point, is it? What is the point?
2. That is, I said ironically. In Britain, quotation marks are called inverted commas.
DORIS LESSING
I dont think I really know. She had been speaking breathlessly, and fast. Now she said slowly: Its not a question of right or wrong, is it? Why should it be? Its a question of what one is. That night Luigi wanted to go promenading with me. For him, that was that. Something had to be done, and hed done it. But I felt ill. He was very nice to me. Hes a very good person, she said, deantly. Yes, he looks it. That night I couldnt sleep. I was blaming myself. I should never have left the cat to go swimming. Well, and then I decided to leave the next day. And I did. And thats all. The whole thing was a mistake, from start to nish. Going to Italy at all? Oh, to go for a holiday would have been all right. Youve done all that work for nothing? You mean you arent going to make use of all that research? No. It was a mistake. Why dont you leave it a few weeks and see how things are then? Why? You might feel differently about it. What an extraordinary thing to say. Why should I? Oh, you mean, time passing, healing woundsthat sort of thing? What an extraordinary idea. Its always seemed to me an extraordinary idea. No, right from the beginning Ive felt ill at ease with the whole business, not myself at all. Rather irrationally, I should have said. Judith considered this, very seriously. She frowned while she thought it over. Then she said: But if one cannot rely on what one feels, what can one rely on? On what one thinks, I should have expected you to say. Should you? Why? Really, you people are all very strange. I dont understand you. She turned off the electric re, and her face closed up. She smiled, friendly and distant, and said: I dont really see any point at all in discussing it. 1963
QUESTIONS
130
135
140
1. Our Friend Judith might be thought of as a character study. What is the effect of having Judiths appearance and behavior described by others who can only observe her and can only guess at her thoughts? What does the story gain or lose by the use of this technique? 2. As the images of Judith accumulate throughout the narrative, how does our impression of her change? Is she a at or a round character? At what point in the story is the narrator herself surprised to learn something new about Judith? Why do you think the narrator and Betty are so fascinated by Judith? 3. Do you agree with Judith that the narrator is stupid for using the word interfere? What should the reader make of Judiths failure to understand why the narrator, Betty, and the Rineiris care?

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING
1. Write a rst-person narrative in the manner of Why I Live at the P.O. that makes free use of dialect and exaggeration for comic effect. 2. Write an essay analyzing the character of Bartleby the scrivener. Is Bartleby fully rounded or at? Does his character change or remain static? Is he best understood as a realistically depicted individual or as a representative of some type or some idea? 3. Write an essay discussing the authors method of characterization in any story youve read so far in this book. How does this method serve the authors storytelling purposes? Are the characters in the story round or at, individual or stereotypical, distinctly or vaguely depicted, etc.? 4. Write a ctional character exploration in the manner of Our Friend Juditha rstperson narrative in which the main character, someone known by the narrator but not very well known, is described through detailed observations as well as reliable or unreliable anecdotes related by other characters.

Character

Transféré par

Informations du document

Description originale:

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Character

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

3

142 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

144 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Though characterization is gradual, taking place sequen-

Why I Live at the P.O. 145

Why I Live at the P.O.

146 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Why I Live at the P.O. 147

148 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Why I Live at the P.O. 149

150 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Why I Live at the P.O. 151

152 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Bartleby, the Scrivener 153

Bartleby, the Scrivener

154 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Bartleby, the Scrivener 155

156 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Bartleby, the Scrivener 157

158 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Bartleby, the Scrivener 159

160 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Bartleby, the Scrivener 161

162 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Bartleby, the Scrivener 163

164 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Bartleby, the Scrivener 165

166 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Bartleby, the Scrivener 167

168 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Bartleby, the Scrivener 169

170 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

8. In fencing, a successful thrust to the opponents body.

Bartleby, the Scrivener 171

172 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Bartleby, the Scrivener 173

174 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Bartleby, the Scrivener 175

176 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Bartleby, the Scrivener 177

178 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Our Friend Judith 179

Our Friend Judith

180 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Our Friend Judith 181

182 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Our Friend Judith 183

184 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Our Friend Judith 185

186 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Our Friend Judith 187

188 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Our Friend Judith 189

190 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Our Friend Judith 191

192 CH. 3 / CHARACTER

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi