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 office
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 pacified; 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
indefinite period Bartleby must have ate, dressed, and slept in my
office, 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 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