The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville
page 37 of 287 (12%)
page 37 of 287 (12%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
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 willfulness, 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, 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 fire with my knuckles against a bit of Windsor soap. 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: "Bartleby a second time says, he won't 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 |
|