An aging, prudent lawyer running a quiet practice on Wall Street hires a pale, unassuming young man named Bartleby to serve as a law copyist. Initially, Bartleby produces an extraordinary amount of work with mechanical precision. However, when asked to assist in verifying the accuracy of his copies, he calmly refuses, stating that he would prefer not to. This phrase soon becomes his sole response to every reasonable request regarding his duties, errands, and eventually his own writing.
The lawyer, desiring to maintain his peace and comfort, struggles between exasperation and a strange, disabling pity. He tolerates the scrivener's growing eccentricities, even discovering that Bartleby has secretly made the office his permanent home, sleeping on a couch and living entirely on ginger nuts. The loneliness of Wall Street on weekends mirrors the absolute isolation of the copyist, stirring a deep, fraternal melancholy in his employer.
As public pressure mounts and clients express alarm at the motionless apparition haunting the chambers, the lawyer attempts to dismiss Bartleby and offers him money to leave. Bartleby remains fixed in his place, prompting the lawyer to abandon his own offices and relocate in order to escape the dilemma. Soon after, the new occupants of the building have Bartleby removed to the Tombs prison as a vagrant.
In prison, Bartleby wanders the yard in serene silence, refusing food with the quiet assertion that he prefers not to dine. When the lawyer visits him there, he finds the scrivener lying huddled against the stone wall, having quietly slipped away from life. A later rumor suggests that Bartleby previously worked in the Dead Letter Office in Washington, sorting missives of thwarted hope for the flames, a circumstance that perhaps explains the genesis of his pallid despair.
