Bartleby, the Scrivener

I am a lawyer who does quiet work on Wall Street, copying and preparing legal documents.When my business suddenly grew larger, I needed to hire another scrivener, so I placed an advertisement.One summer morning, a pale, quiet young man appeared in my office doorway; his name was Bartleby.

Something about his calm, almost sad appearance made me hire him at once, hoping his steadiness might balance my two excitable clerks.I gave him a desk in the corner of my office, close to a small window that looked out at a blank brick wall.At first, Bartleby copied documents with amazing speed, as if he had been starving for work.

He wrote silently by daylight and by candlelight, page after page, without ever pausing to rest.I should have been delighted by such effort, but there was something mechanical and joyless in the way he worked.On the third day, I hurriedly called him over to help me check a short document against its copy.

Without moving from behind his screen, Bartleby answered in a mild, steady voice: “I would prefer not to.”I sat in stunned silence, certain I must have misheard him, and repeated my request more clearly.But his answer came back exactly the same, as calm as before: “I would prefer not to.”

I stared at him, expecting some sign of anger or nervousness, but his face stayed perfectly composed.A few days later, I gathered all four of my clerks to check some important legal papers together.“Bartleby! Quick, I am waiting,” I called, and heard only the slow scrape of his chair.

He appeared briefly at the edge of his corner and said, once again, “I would prefer not to” — then quietly disappeared behind his screen.For a moment I stood frozen, unable to understand how one mild little sentence could so completely stop a grown man from being ordered about.