extrait de "Bartleby the Scrivener",
Herman Melville
Question large à traiter
sur ce texte : la modalité radicale
What shall I do? I now said to myself, buttoning up my coat to the last button. What
shall I do? what ought I to do? what does conscience say I should do with this man,
or rather ghost. Rid myself of him, I must; go, he shall. But how? You will not thrust
him, the poor, pale, passive mortal,-you will not thrust such a helpless creature
out of your door? you will not dishonor yourself by such cruelty? No, I will not,
I cannot do that.
Rather would I let him live and die here, and then mason up his remains in the wall.
What then will you do? For all your coaxing, he will not budge. Bribes he leaves
under your own paperweight on your table; in short, it is quite plain that he prefers
to cling to you.
Then something severe, something unusual must be done. What! surely you will not
have him collared by a constable, and commit his innocent pallor to the common jail?
And upon what ground could you procure such a thing to be done?-a vagrant, is he?
What! he a vagrant, a wanderer, who refuses to budge? It is because he will not be
a vagrant, then, that you seek to count him as a vagrant.
That is too absurd. No visible means of support: there I have him. Wrong again: for
indubitably he does support himself, and that is the only unanswerable proof that
any man can show of his possessing the means so to do. No more then. Since he will
not quit me, I must quit him.
I will change my offices; I will move elsewhere; and give him fair notice, that if
I find him on my new premises I will then proceed against him as a common trespasser.
Acting accordingly, next day I thus addressed him: "I find these chambers too
far from the City Hall; the air is unwholesome. In a word, I propose to remove my
offices next week, and shall no longer require your services. I tell you this now,
in order that you may seek another place."
He made no reply, and nothing more was said.
On the appointed day I engaged carts and men, proceeded to my chambers, and having
but little furniture, every thing was removed in a few hours.
Throughout, the scrivener remained standing behind the screen, which I directed to
be removed the last thing. It was withdrawn; and being folded up like a huge folio,
left him the motionless occupant of a naked room. I stood in the entry watching him
a moment, while something from within me upbraided me.
I re-entered, with my hand in my pocket-and-and my heart in my mouth.
"Good-bye, Bartleby; I am going-good-bye, and God some way bless you; and take
that," slipping something in his hand. But it dropped upon the floor, and then,-strange
to say-I tore myself from him whom I had so longed to be rid of.
(á)
All is over with him, by this time, thought I at last, when through another week
no further intelligence reached me. But coming to my room the day after, I found
several persons waiting at my door in a high state of nervous excitement.
"That's the man-here he comes," cried the foremost one, whom I recognized
as the lawyer who had previously called upon me alone.
"You must take him away, sir, at once," cried a portly person among them,
advancing upon me, and whom I knew to be the landlord of No. - Wall-street. "These
gentlemen, my tenants, cannot stand it any longer; Mr. B--" pointing to the
lawyer, "has turned him out of his room, and he now persists in haunting the
building generally, sitting upon the banisters of the stairs by day, and sleeping
in the entry by night. Every body is concerned; clients are leaving the offices;
some fears are entertained of a mob; something you must do, and that without delay."
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 any one else. In vain:-I was the last person known to have any thing 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 up stairs 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 some one?"
"No; I would prefer not to make any change."
VOIR LE corrigé
proposé par P. Boucher,
préparateur à Univ Nantes, avec son aimable autorisation
|
