the empty grate, a blacking box 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 bachelor's 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; and every night of every day it is an emptiness.
This building too, which of week-days 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 populous--a sort of innocent and transformed Marius
brooding among the ruins of Carthage!

For the first 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
fancyings--chimeras, doubtless, of a sick and silly brain--led on to
other and more special thoughts, concerning the eccentricities of
Bartleby. Presentiments of strange discoveries hovered round me. The
scrivener's pale form appeared to me laid out, among uncaring strangers,
in its shivering winding sheet.

Suddenly I was attracted by Bartleby's closed desk, the key in open