New York Stories

by Bob Blaisdell

  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 me—no 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 confidential interview with the scrivener, in his (the lawyer’s) 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.

  “What are you doing here, Bartleby?” said I.

  “Sitting upon the banister,” he mildly replied.

  I motioned him into the lawyer’s 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 office?”

  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 dry-goods store?”

  “There is too much confinement about that. No, I would not like a clerkship; but I am not particular.”

  “Too much confinement,” I cried; “why you keep yourself confined 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 bartender’s 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 definite 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 first time in all my exasperating connection with him, fairly flying into a passion. “If you do not go away from these premises before night, I shall feel bound—indeed, I am bound—to—to—to 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 final thought occurred to me—one 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 now—not to my office, but my dwelling—and 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 flight, rushed from the building, ran up Wall Street towards Broadway, and, jumping into the first 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 benefit Bartleby, and shield him from rude persecution. I now strove to be entirely carefree and quiescent, and my conscience justified me in the attempt, though, indeed, it was not 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; 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 office, 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 conflicting effect upon me. At first I was indignant, but at last almost approved. The landlord’s 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 filed 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 officer, 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 confinement as possible till something less harsh might be done—though, indeed, I hardly knew what. At all events, if nothing else could be decided upon, the almshouse 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 meatlike man in an apron accosted me, and, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, said—“Is that your friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he want to starve? If he does, let him live on the prison fare, that’s all.”

  “Who are you?” asked I, not knowing what to make of such an unofficially speaking person in such a place.

  “I am the grubman. 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 grubman’s 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 grubman, 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 benefit to the scrivener, I acquiesced,
and, asking the grubman his name, went up with him to Bartleby.

  “Bartleby, this is a friend; you will find him very useful to you.”

  “Your sarvant, sir, your sarvant,” said the grubman, making a low salutation behind his apron. “Hope you find it pleasant here, sir; nice grounds—cool apartments—hope you’ll stay with us some time—try to make it agreeable. What will you have for dinner today?”

  “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.

  “How’s this?” said the grubman, addressing me with a stare of astonishment. “He’s odd, ain’t 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 can’t help pity ’em—can’t help it, sir. Did you know Monroe Edwards?” he added, touchingly, and paused. Then, laying his hand pityeously on my shoulder, sighed, “He died of consumption at Sing-Sing. So you weren’t 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 finding him.

  “I saw him coming from his cell not long ago,” said a turnkey. “Maybe he’s 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 lies—sleeping in the yard there. ’Tis not twenty minutes since I saw him lie down.”

  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 underfoot. 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 grubman peered upon me now. “His dinner is ready. Won’t he dine today, either? Or does he live without dining?”

  “Lives without dining,” said I, and closed the eyes.

  “Eh!—He’s asleep, ain’t he?”

  “With kings and counselors,” murmured I.

  * * *

  There would seem little need for proceeding further in this history. Imagination will readily supply the meager recital of poor Bartleby’s interment. But, ere parting with the reader, let me say that if this little narrative has sufficiently interested him to awaken curiosity as to who Bartleby was, and what manner of life he led prior to the present narrator’s 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 scrivener’s 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 suggestive interest to me, however sad, it may prove the same with some others, and so I will briefly mention it. The report was this: that Bartleby had been a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Office at Washington, from which he had been suddenly removed by a change in the administration. When I think over this rumor, hardly can I 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 fitted to heighten it than that of continually handling these dead letters, and assorting them for the flames? For by the cartload they are annually burned. Sometimes from out the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring—the finger it was meant for, perhaps, moulders in the grave; a bank note 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 stifled by unrelieved calamities. On errands of life, these letters speed to death.

  Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!

  ADVENTURES OF A NOVELIST (1896)

  Stephen Crane

  Stephen Crane (1871–1900), born in New Jersey, began visiting New York City around 1891. He based “Adventures of a Novelist” on an actual event, converting into the third-person his experience of testifying to the police and in court in defense of a prostitute. He publicized the event himself, and explained his participation in it in this way: “I am studying the life of the Tenderloin for the purpose of getting material for some sketches.”1 (Indeed, he did gather material, and was the renowned author of The Red Badge of Courage, as well as of the notorious (at the time) New York novella Maggie: A Girl of the Streets.) On September 20, 1896, in the New York Journal, Crane narrated his “adventure” with his character in the role of “the reluctant witness”; Crane’s fictionalized dramatization was meant to depict not only police abuse of power but also the typical wavering New York witness, whose conscience is addressed with the admonition: “If you don’t go to court and speak for that girl you are no man!” As it happened, Crane was indeed a man and, like his protagonist, did testify and exonerate “that girl.” Crane traveled the world, reporting on wars and civil strife. He died at twenty-eight of tuberculosis.

  THIS IS A plain tale of two chorus girls, a woman of the streets and a reluctant laggard witness. The tale properly begins in a resort on Broadway, where the two chorus girls and the reluctant witness sat the entire evening. They were on the verge of departing their several ways when a young woman approached one of the chorus girls, with outstretched hand.

  “Why, how do you do?” she said. “I haven’t seen you for a long time.”

  The chorus girl recognized some acquaintance of the past, and the young woman then took a seat and joined the party. Finally they left the table in this resort, and the quartet walked down Broadway together. At the corner of Thirty-first street one of the chorus girls said that she wished to take a car immediately for home, and so the reluctant witness left one of the chorus girls, and the young woman on the corner of Thirty-first street while he placed the other chorus girl aboard an uptown cable car. The two girls who waited on the corner were deep in conversation.

  The reluctant witness was returning leisurely to them. In the semi-conscious manner in which people note details which do not appear at the time important, he saw two men passing along Broadway. They passed swiftly, like men who are going home. They paid attention to none, and none at the corner of Thirty-first street and Broadway paid attention to them.

  The two girls were still deep in conversation. They were standing at the curb facing the street. The two men passed unseen—in all human probability—by the two girls. The reluctant witness continued his leisurely way. He was within four feet of these two girls when suddenly and silently a man appeared from nowhere in particular and grabbed them both.

  The astonishment of the reluctant witness was so great for the ensuing seconds that he was hardly aware of what transpired during that time, save that both girls screamed. Then he heard this man, who was now evidently an officer, say to them: “Come to the station house. You are under arrest for soliciting two men.”

  With one voice the unknown woman, the chorus girl and the reluctant witness cried out: “What two men?”

  The officer said: “Those two men who have just passed.”

  And here be
gan the wildest and most hysterical sobbing of the two girls, accompanied by spasmodic attempts to pull their arms away from the grip of the policeman. The chorus girl seemed nearly insane with fright and fury. Finally she screamed:

  “Well, he’s my husband.” And with her finger she indicated the reluctant witness. The witness at once replied to the swift, questioning glance of the officer, “Yes; I am.”

  If it was necessary to avow a marriage to save a girl who is not a prostitute from being arrested as a prostitute, it must be done, though the man suffer eternally. And then the officer forgot immediately—without a second’s hesitation, he forgot that a moment previously he had arrested this girl for soliciting, and so, dropping her arm, released her.

  “But,” said he, “I have got this other one.” He was as picturesque as a wolf.

  “Why arrest her, either?” said the reluctant witness.

  “For soliciting those two men.”

  “But she didn’t solicit those two men.”

  “Say,” said the officer, turning, “do you know this woman?”

  The chorus girl had it in mind to lie then for the purpose of saving this woman easily and simply from the palpable wrong she seemed to be about to experience. “Yes; I know her”—“I have seen her two or three times”—“Yes; I have met her before——” But the reluctant witness said at once that he knew nothing whatever of the girl.

  “Well,” said the officer, “she’s a common prostitute.”

  There was a short silence then, but the reluctant witness presently said: “Are you arresting her as a common prostitute? She has been perfectly respectable since she has been with us. She hasn’t done anything wrong since she has been in our company.”

  “I am arresting her for soliciting those two men,” answered the officer, “and if you people don’t want to get pinched, too, you had better not be seen with her.”