【英文读物】Bartleby, The Scrivener A Story of Wall-Street.docx

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1、【英文读物】Bartleby, The Scrivener A Story of Wall-StreetChapter 1 I am a rather elderly man. The nature of my avocations for the lastthirty years has brought me into more than ordinary contact with whatwould seem an interesting and somewhat singular set of men, of whom asyet nothing that I know of has e

2、ver been written:-I mean thelaw-copyists or scriveners. I have known very many of them,professionally and privately, and if I pleased, could relate divershistories, at which good-natured gentlemen might smile, and sentimentalsouls might weep. But I waive the biographies of all other scrivenersfor a

3、few passages in the life of Bartleby, who was a scrivener of thestrangest I ever saw or heard of. While of other law-copyists I mightwrite the complete life, of Bartleby nothing of that sort can be done.I believe that no materials exist for a full and satisfactory biographyof this man. It is an irre

4、parable loss to literature. Bartleby was oneof those beings of whom nothing is ascertainable, except from theoriginal sources, and in his case those are very small. What my ownastonished eyes saw of Bartleby, _that_ is all I know of him, except,indeed, one vague report which will appear in the seque

5、l.Ere introducing the scrivener, as he first appeared to me, it is fit Imake some mention of myself, my _employees_, my business, my chambers,and general surroundings; because some such description is indispensableto an adequate understanding of the chief character about to bepresented.Imprimis: I a

6、m a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled witha profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best. Hence,though I belong to a profession proverbially energetic and nervous, evento turbulence, at times, yet nothing of that sort have I ever sufferedto invade my peace. I am one of

7、 those unambitious lawyers who neveraddresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause; but in thecool tranquility of a snug retreat, do a snug business among rich mensbonds and mortgages and title-deeds. All who know me, consider me aneminently _safe_ man. The late John Jacob Astor, a perso

8、nage littlegiven to poetic enthusiasm, had no hesitation in pronouncing my firstgrand point to be prudence; my next, method. I do not speak it invanity, but simply record the fact, that I was not unemployed in myprofession by the late John Jacob Astor; a name which, I admit, I loveto repeat, for it

9、hath a rounded and orbicular sound to it, and ringslike unto bullion. I will freely add, that I was not insensible to thelate John Jacob Astors good opinion.Some time prior to the period at which this little history begins, myavocations had been largely increased. The good old office, now extinctin

10、the State of New York, of a Master in Chancery, had been conferredupon me. It was not a very arduous office, but very pleasantlyremunerative. I seldom lose my temper; much more seldom indulge indangerous indignation at wrongs and outrages; but I must be permitted tobe rash here and declare, that I c

11、onsider the sudden and violentabrogation of the office of Master in Chancery, by the new Constitution,as a-premature act; inasmuch as I had counted upon a life-lease of theprofits, whereas I only received those of a few short years. But thisis by the way.My chambers were up stairs at No.-Wall-street

12、. At one end they lookedupon the white wall of the interior of a spacious sky-light shaft,penetrating the building from top to bottom. This view might have beenconsidered rather tame than otherwise, deficient in what landscapepainters call life. But if so, the view from the other end of mychambers o

13、ffered, at least, a contrast, if nothing more. In thatdirection my windows commanded an unobstructed view of a lofty brickwall, black by age and everlasting shade; which wall required nospy-glass to bring out its lurking beauties, but for the benefit of allnear-sighted spectators, was pushed up to w

14、ithin ten feet of my windowpanes. Owing to the great height of the surrounding buildings, and mychambers being on the second floor, the interval between this wall andmine not a little resembled a huge square cistern.At the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby, I had two personsas copyists in

15、 my employment, and a promising lad as an office-boy.First, Turkey; second, Nippers; third, Ginger Nut. These may seemnames, the like of which are not usually found in the Directory. Intruth they were nicknames, mutually conferred upon each other by mythree clerks, and were deemed expressive of thei

16、r respective persons orcharacters. Turkey was a short, pursy Englishman of about my own age,that is, somewhere not far from sixty. In the morning, one might say,his face was of a fine florid hue, but after twelve oclock,meridian-his dinner hour-it blazed like a grate full of Christmascoals; and cont

17、inued blazing-but, as it were, with a gradual wane-till6 oclock, P.M. or thereabouts, after which I saw no more of theproprietor of the face, which gaining its meridian with the sun, seemedto set with it, to rise, culminate, and decline the following day, withthe like regularity and undiminished glo

18、ry. There are many singularcoincidences I have known in the course of my life, not the least amongwhich was the fact, that exactly when Turkey displayed his fullest beamsfrom his red and radiant countenance, just then, too, at that criticalmoment, began the daily period when I considered his busines

19、s capacitiesas seriously disturbed for the remainder of the twenty-four hours. Notthat he was absolutely idle, or averse to business then; far from it.The difficulty was, he was apt to be altogether too energetic. Therewas a strange, inflamed, flurried, flighty recklessness of activityabout him. He

20、would be incautious in dipping his pen into his inkstand.All his blots upon my documents, were dropped there after twelveoclock, meridian. Indeed, not only would he be reckless and sadlygiven to making blots in the afternoon, but some days he went further,and was rather noisy. At such times, too, hi

21、s face flamed withaugmented blazonry, as if cannel coal had been heaped on anthracite. Hemade an unpleasant racket with his chair; spilled his sand-box; inmending his pens, impatiently split them all to pieces, and threw themon the floor in a sudden passion; stood up and leaned over his table,boxing

22、 his papers about in a most indecorous manner, very sad to beholdin an elderly man like him. Nevertheless, as he was in many ways a mostvaluable person to me, and all the time before twelve oclock, meridian,was the quickest, steadiest creature too, accomplishing a great deal ofwork in a style not ea

23、sy to be matched-for these reasons, I was willingto overlook his eccentricities, though indeed, occasionally, Iremonstrated with him. I did this very gently, however, because, thoughthe civilest, nay, the blandest and most reverential of men in themorning, yet in the afternoon he was disposed, upon

24、provocation, to beslightly rash with his tongue, in fact, insolent. Now, valuing hismorning services as I did, and resolved not to lose them; yet, at thesame time made uncomfortable by his inflamed ways after twelve oclock;and being a man of peace, unwilling by my admonitions to call forthunseemly r

25、etorts from him; I took upon me, one Saturday noon (he wasalways worse on Saturdays), to hint to him, very kindly, that perhapsnow that he was growing old, it might be well to abridge his labors; inshort, he need not come to my chambers after twelve oclock, but, dinnerover, had best go home to his l

26、odgings and rest himself till teatime.But no; he insisted upon his afternoon devotions. His countenancebecame intolerably fervid, as he oratorically assured me-gesticulatingwith a long ruler at the other end of the room-that if his services inthe morning were useful, how indispensable, then, in the

27、afternoon?With submission, sir, said Turkey on this occasion, I consider myselfyour right-hand man. In the morning I but marshal and deploy mycolumns; but in the afternoon I put myself at their head, and gallantlycharge the foe, thus!-and he made a violent thrust with the ruler.But the blots, Turkey

28、, intimated I.True,-but, with submission, sir, behold these hairs! I am gettingold. Surely, sir, a blot or two of a warm afternoon is not to beseverely urged against gray hairs. Old age-even if it blot thepage-is honorable. With submission, sir, we _both_ are getting old.This appeal to my fellow-fee

29、ling was hardly to be resisted. At allevents, I saw that go he would not. So I made up my mind to let himstay, resolving, nevertheless, to see to it, that during the afternoonhe had to do with my less important papers.Chapter 2 Nippers, the second on my list, was a whiskered, sallow, and, upon thewh

30、ole, rather piratical-looking young man of about five and twenty. Ialways deemed him the victim of two evil powers-ambition andindigestion. The ambition was evinced by a certain impatience of theduties of a mere copyist, an unwarrantable usurpation of strictlyprofessional affairs, such as the origin

31、al drawing up of legaldocuments. The indigestion seemed betokened in an occasional nervoustestiness and grinning irritability, causing the teeth to audibly grindtogether over mistakes committed in copying; unnecessary maledictions,hissed, rather than spoken, in the heat of business; and especially b

32、y acontinual discontent with the height of the table where he worked.Though of a very ingenious mechanical turn, Nippers could never get thistable to suit him. He put chips under it, blocks of various sorts, bitsof pasteboard, and at last went so far as to attempt an exquisiteadjustment by final pie

33、ces of folded blotting paper. But no inventionwould answer. If, for the sake of easing his back, he brought the tablelid at a sharp angle well up towards his chin, and wrote there like aman using the steep roof of a Dutch house for his desk:-then hedeclared that it stopped the circulation in his arm

34、s. If now he loweredthe table to his waistbands, and stooped over it in writing, then therewas a sore aching in his back. In short, the truth of the matter was,Nippers knew not what he wanted. Or, if he wanted any thing, it was tobe rid of a scriveners table altogether. Among the manifestations ofhi

35、s diseased ambition was a fondness he had for receiving visits fromcertain ambiguous-looking fellows in seedy coats, whom he called hisclients. Indeed I was aware that not only was he, at times,considerable of a ward-politician, but he occasionally did a littlebusiness at the Justices courts, and wa

36、s not unknown on the steps ofthe Tombs. I have good reason to believe, however, that one individualwho called upon him at my chambers, and who, with a grand air, heinsisted was his client, was no other than a dun, and the allegedtitle-deed, a bill. But with all his failings, and the annoyances hecau

37、sed me, Nippers, like his compatriot Turkey, was a very useful man tome; wrote a neat, swift hand; and, when he chose, was not deficient in agentlemanly sort of deportment. Added to this, he always dressed in agentlemanly sort of way; and so, incidentally, reflected credit upon mychambers. Whereas w

38、ith respect to Turkey, I had much ado to keep himfrom being a reproach to me. His clothes were apt to look oily andsmell of eating-houses. He wore his pantaloons very loose and baggy insummer. His coats were execrable; his hat not to be handled. But whilethe hat was a thing of indifference to me, in

39、asmuch as his naturalcivility and deference, as a dependent Englishman, always led him todoff it the moment he entered the room, yet his coat was another matter.Concerning his coats, I reasoned with him; but with no effect. Thetruth was, I suppose, that a man of so small an income, could not affordt

40、o sport such a lustrous face and a lustrous coat at one and the sametime. As Nippers once observed, Turkeys money went chiefly for redink. One winter day I presented Turkey with a highly-respectablelooking coat of my own, a padded gray coat, of a most comfortablewarmth, and which buttoned straight u

41、p from the knee to the neck. Ithought Turkey would appreciate the favor, and abate his rashness andobstreperousness of afternoons. But no. I verily believe thatbuttoning himself up in so downy and blanket-like a coat had apernicious effect upon him; upon the same principle that too much oatsare bad

42、for horses. In fact, precisely as a rash, restive horse is saidto feel his oats, so Turkey felt his coat. It made him insolent. Hewas a man whom prosperity harmed.Though concerning the self-indulgent habits of Turkey I had my ownprivate surmises, yet touching Nippers I was well persuaded thatwhateve

43、r might be his faults in other respects, he was, at least, atemperate young man. But indeed, nature herself seemed to have been hisvintner, and at his birth charged him so thoroughly with an irritable,brandy-like disposition, that all subsequent potations were needless.When I consider how, amid the

44、stillness of my chambers, Nippers wouldsometimes impatiently rise from his seat, and stooping over his table,spread his arms wide apart, seize the whole desk, and move it, and jerkit, with a grim, grinding motion on the floor, as if the table were aperverse voluntary agent, intent on thwarting and v

45、exing him; I plainlyperceive that for Nippers, brandy and water were altogether superfluous.It was fortunate for me that, owing to its peculiarcause-indigestion-the irritability and consequent nervousness ofNippers, were mainly observable in the morning, while in the afternoonhe was comparatively mi

46、ld. So that Turkeys paroxysms only coming onabout twelve oclock, I never had to do with their eccentricities at onetime. Their fits relieved each other like guards. When Nippers wason, Turkeys was off; and _vice versa_. This was a good naturalarrangement under the circumstances.Ginger Nut, the third

47、 on my list, was a lad some twelve years old. Hisfather was a carman, ambitious of seeing his son on the bench instead ofa cart, before he died. So he sent him to my office as student at law,errand boy, and cleaner and sweeper, at the rate of one dollar a week.He had a little desk to himself, but he

48、 did not use it much. Uponinspection, the drawer exhibited a great array of the shells of varioussorts of nuts. Indeed, to this quick-witted youth the whole noblescience of the law was contained in a nut-shell. Not the least amongthe employments of Ginger Nut, as well as one which he discharged with

49、the most alacrity, was his duty as cake and apple purveyor for Turkeyand Nippers. Copying law papers being proverbially dry, husky sort ofbusiness, my two scriveners were fain to moisten their mouths very oftenwith Spitzenbergs to be had at the numerous stalls nigh the CustomHouse and Post Office. Also, they sent Ginger Nut very frequently forthat peculiar cake-small, flat, round, and very spicy-after which heh