No light shows from the mountain. To and fro I walk the piazza deck,
haunted by Marianna's face, and many as real a story.




BARTLEBY.


I am a rather elderly man. The nature of my avocations, for the last
thirty years, has brought me into more than ordinary contact with what
would seem an interesting and somewhat singular set of men, of whom, as
yet, nothing, that I know of, has ever been written--I mean, the
law-copyists, or scriveners. I have known very many of them,
professionally and privately, and, if I pleased, could relate divers
histories, at which good-natured gentlemen might smile, and sentimental
souls might weep. But I waive the biographies of all other scriveners,
for a few passages in the life of Bartleby, who was a scrivener, the
strangest I ever saw, or heard of. While, of other law-copyists, I might
write the complete life, of Bartleby nothing of that sort can be done. I
believe that no materials exist, for a full and satisfactory biography
of this man. It is an irreparable loss to literature. Bartleby was one
of those beings of whom nothing is ascertainable, except from the
original sources, and, in his case, those are very small. What my own
astonished eyes saw of Bartleby, _that_ is all I know of him, except,
indeed, one vague report, which will appear in the sequel.

Ere introducing the scrivener, as he first appeared to me, it is fit I
make some mention of myself, my _employés_, my business, my chambers,
and general surroundings; because some such description is indispensable