Billy Budd and the Piazza Tales Read online

  On one slope, the roof was deeply weather-stained, and, nigh the turfy eaves-trough, all velvet-napped; no doubt the snail-monks founded mossy priories there. The other slope was newly shingled. On the north side, doorless and windowless, the clap-boards, innocent of paint, were yet green as the north side of lichened pines or copperless hulls of Japanese junks, becalmed. The whole base, like those of the neighboring rocks, was rimmed about with shaded streaks of richest sod; for, with hearth-stones in fairy land, the natural rock, though housed, preserves to the last, just as in open fields, its fertilizing charm; only, by necessity, [pg 018]

  working now at a remove, to the sward without. So, at least, says Oberon, grave authority in fairy lore. Though setting Oberon aside, certain it is, that, even in the common world, the soil, close up to farm-houses, as close up to pasture rocks, is, even though untended, ever richer than it is a few rods off-such gentle, nurturing heat is radiated there.

  But with this cottage, the shaded streaks were richest in its front and about its entrance, where the ground-sill, and especially the doorsill had, through long eld, quietly settled down.

  No fence was seen, no inclosure. Near by-ferns, ferns, ferns; further-woods, woods, woods; beyond-mountains, mountains, mountains; then-sky, sky, sky. Turned out in aerial commons, pasture for the mountain moon. Nature, and but nature, house and, all; even a low cross-pile of silver birch, piled openly, to season; up among whose silvery sticks, as through the fencing of some sequestered grave, sprang vagrant raspberry bushes-willful assertors of their right of way.

  The foot-track, so dainty narrow, just like a sheep-track, led through long ferns that lodged. [pg 019]

  Fairy land at last, thought I; Una and her lamb dwell here. Truly, a small abode-mere palanquin, set down on the summit, in a pass between two worlds, participant of neither.

  A sultry hour, and I wore a light hat, of yellow sinnet, with white duck trowsers-both relics of my tropic sea-going. Clogged in the muffling ferns, I softly stumbled, staining the knees a sea-green.

  Pausing at the threshold, or rather where threshold once had been, I saw, through the open door-way, a lonely girl, sewing at a lonely window. A pale-cheeked girl, and fly-specked window, with wasps about the mended upper panes. I spoke. She shyly started, like some Tahiti girl, secreted for a sacrifice, first catching sight, through palms, of Captain Cook. Recovering, she bade me enter; with her apron brushed off a stool; then silently resumed her own. With thanks I took the stool; but now, for a space, I, too, was mute. This, then, is the fairy-mountain house, and here, the fairy queen sitting at her fairy window.

  I went up to it. Downwards, directed by the tunneled pass, as through a leveled telescope, [pg 020]

  I caught sight of a, far-off, soft, azure world. I hardly knew it, though I came from it.

  "You must find this view very pleasant," said I, at last.

  "Oh, sir," tears starting in her eyes, "the first time I looked out of this window, I said 'never, never shall I weary of this.'"

  "And what wearies you of it now?"

  "I don't know," while a tear fell; "but it is not the view, it is Marianna."

  Some months back, her brother, only seventeen, had come hither, a long way from the other side, to cut wood and burn coal, and she, elder sister, had accompanied, him. Long had they been orphans, and now, sole inhabitants of the sole house upon the mountain. No guest came, no traveler passed. The zigzag, perilous road was only used at seasons by the coal wagons. The brother was absent the entire day, sometimes the entire night. When at evening, fagged out, he did come home, he soon left his bench, poor fellow, for his bed; just as one, at last, wearily quits that, too, for still deeper rest. The bench, the bed, the grave. [pg 021]

  Silent I stood by the fairy window, while these things were being told.

  "Do you know," said she at last, as stealing from her story, "do you know who lives yonder? — I have never been down into that country-away off there, I mean; that house, that marble one," pointing far across the lower landscape; "have you not caught it? there, on the long hill-side: the field before, the woods behind; the white shines out against their blue; don't you mark it? the only house in sight."

  I looked; and after a time, to my surprise, recognized, more by its position than its aspect, or Marianna's description, my own abode, glimmering much like this mountain one from the piazza. The mirage haze made it appear less a farm-house than King Charming's palace.

  "I have often wondered who lives there; but it must be some happy one; again this morning was I thinking so."

  "Some happy one," returned I, starting; "and why do you think that? You judge some rich one lives there?"

  "Rich or not, I never thought; but it looks so happy, I can't tell how; and it is so far [pg 022]

  away. Sometimes I think I do but dream it is there. You should see it in a sunset."

  "No doubt the sunset gilds it finely; but not more than the sunrise does this house, perhaps."

  "This house? The sun is a good sun, but it never gilds this house. Why should it? This old house is rotting. That makes it so mossy. In the morning, the sun comes in at this old window, to be sure-boarded up, when first we came; a window I can't keep clean, do what I may-and half burns, and nearly blinds me at my sewing, besides setting the flies and wasps astir-such flies and wasps as only lone mountain houses know. See, here is the curtain-this apron-I try to shut it out with then. It fades it, you see. Sun gild this house? not that ever Marianna saw."

  "Because when this roof is gilded most, then you stay here within."

  "The hottest, weariest hour of day, you mean? Sir, the sun gilds not this roof. It leaked so, brother newly shingled all one side. Did you not see it? The north side, where the sun strikes most on what the rain has wetted. [pg 023]

  The sun is a good sun; but this roof, in first scorches, and then rots. An old house. They went West, and are long dead, they say, who built it. A mountain house. In winter no fox could den in it. That chimney-place has been blocked up with snow, just like a hollow stump."

  "Yours are strange fancies, Marianna."

  "They but reflect the things."

  "Then I should have said, 'These are strange things,' rather than, 'Yours are strange fancies.'"

  "As you will;" and took up her sewing.

  Something in those quiet words, or in that quiet act, it made me mute again; while, noting, through the fairy window, a broad shadow stealing on, as cast by some gigantic condor, floating at brooding poise on outstretched wings, I marked how, by its deeper and inclusive dusk, it wiped away into itself all lesser shades of rock or fern.

  "You watch the cloud," said Marianna.

  "No, a shadow; a cloud's, no doubt-though that I cannot see. How did you know it? Your eyes are on your work." [pg 024]

  "It dusked my work. There, now the cloud is gone, Tray comes back."

  "How?"

  "The dog, the shaggy dog. At noon, he steals off, of himself, to change his shape-returns, and lies down awhile, nigh the door. Don't you see him? His head is turned round at you; though, when you came, he looked before him."

  "Your eyes rest but on your work; what do you speak of?"

  "By the window, crossing."

  "You mean this shaggy shadow-the nigh one? And, yes, now that I mark it, it is not unlike a large, black Newfoundland dog. The invading shadow gone, the invaded one returns. But I do not see what casts it."

  "For that, you must go without."

  "One of those grassy rocks, no doubt."

  "You see his head, his face?"

  "The shadow's? You speak as if you saw it, and all the time your eyes are on your work."

  "Tray looks at you," still without glancing up; "this is his hour; I see him." [pg 025]

  "Have you then, so long sat at this mountain-window, where but clouds and, vapors pass, that, to you, shadows are as things, though you speak of them as of phantoms; that, by familiar knowledge, working like a second sight, you can, without looking for them, tell just where t
hey are, though, as having mice-like feet, they creep about, and come and go; that, to you, these lifeless shadows are as living friends, who, though out of sight, are not out of mind, even in their faces-is it so?"

  "That way I never thought of it. But the friendliest one, that used to soothe my weariness so much, coolly quivering on the ferns, it was taken from me, never to return, as Tray did just now. The shadow of a birch. The tree was struck by lightning, and brother cut it up. You saw the cross-pile out-doors-the buried root lies under it; but not the shadow. That is flown, and never will come back, nor ever anywhere stir again."

  Another cloud here stole along, once more blotting out the dog, and blackening all the mountain; while the stillness was so still, [pg 026]

  deafness might have forgot itself, or else believed that noiseless shadow spoke.

  "Birds, Marianna, singing-birds, I hear none; I hear nothing. Boys and bob-o-links, do they never come a-berrying up here?"

  "Birds, I seldom hear; boys, never. The berries mostly ripe and fall-few, but me, the wiser."

  "But yellow-birds showed me the way-part way, at least."

  "And then flew back. I guess they play about the mountain-side, but don't make the top their home. And no doubt you think that, living so lonesome here, knowing nothing, hearing nothing-little, at least, but sound of thunder and the fall of trees-never reading, seldom speaking, yet ever wakeful, this is what gives me my strange thoughts-for so you call them-this weariness and wakefulness together Brother, who stands and works in open air, would I could rest like him; but mine is mostly but dull woman's work-sitting, sitting, restless sitting."

  "But, do you not go walk at times? These woods are wide." [pg 027]

  "And lonesome; lonesome, because so wide. Sometimes, 'tis true, of afternoons, I go a little way; but soon come back again. Better feel lone by hearth, than rock. The shadows hereabouts I know-those in the woods are strangers."

  "But the night?"

  "Just like the day. Thinking, thinking-a wheel I cannot stop; pure want of sleep it is that turns it."

  "I have heard that, for this wakeful weariness, to say one's prayers, and then lay one's head upon a fresh hop pillow-"

  "Look!"

  Through the fairy window, she pointed down the steep to a small garden patch near by-mere pot of rifled loam, half rounded in by sheltering rocks-where, side by side, some feet apart, nipped and puny, two hop-vines climbed two poles, and, gaining their tip-ends, would have then joined over in an upward clasp, but the baffled shoots, groping awhile in empty air, trailed back whence they sprung.

  "You have tried the pillow, then?"

  "Yes." [pg 028]

  "And prayer?"

  "Prayer and pillow."

  "Is there no other cure, or charm?"

  "Oh, if I could but once get to yonder house, and but look upon whoever the happy being is that lives there! A foolish thought: why do I think it? Is it that I live so lonesome, and know nothing?"

  "I, too, know nothing; and, therefore, cannot answer; but, for your sake, Marianna, well could wish that I were that happy one of the happy house you dream you see; for then you would behold him now, and, as you say, this weariness might leave you."

  — Enough. Launching my yawl no more for fairy-land, I stick to the piazza. It is my box-royal; and this amphitheatre, my theatre of San Carlo. Yes, the scenery is magical-the illusion so complete. And Madam Meadow Lark, my prima donna, plays her grand engagement here; and, drinking in her sunrise note, which, Memnon-like, seems struck from the golden window, how far from me the weary face behind it.

  But, every night, when the curtain falls, [pg 029]

  truth comes in with darkness. 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.

  [pg 031]

  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 [pg 032]

  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 employйs, my business, my chambers, and general surroundings; because some such description is indispensable to an adequate understanding of the chief character about to be presented. Imprimis: I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best. Hence, though I belong to a profession proverbially energetic and nervous, even to turbulence, at times, yet nothing of that sort have I ever suffered to invade my peace. I am one of those unambitious lawyers who never addresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause; but, in the cool tranquillity of a snug retreat, do a snug business among rich men's bonds, and mortgages, and title-deeds. All who know me, consider me an eminently [pg 033]

  safe man. The late John Jacob Astor, a personage little given to poetic enthusiasm, had no hesitation in pronouncing my first grand point to be prudence; my next, method. I do not speak it in vanity, but simply record the fact, that I was not unemployed in my profession by the late John Jacob Astor; a name which, I admit, I love to repeat; for it hath a rounded and orbicular sound to it, and rings like unto bullion. I will freely add, that I was not insensible to the late John Jacob Astor's good opinion.

  Some time prior to the period at which this little history begins, my avocations had been largely increased. The good old office, now extinct in the State of New York, of a Master in Chancery, had been conferred upon me. It was not a very arduous office, but very pleasantly remunerative. I seldom lose my temper; much more seldom indulge in dangerous indignation at wrongs and outrages; but, I must be permitted to be rash here, and declare, that I consider the sudden and violent abrogation of the office of Master in Chancery, by the new Constitution, as a — premature act; inasmuch [pg 034]

  as I had counted upon a life-lease of the profits, whereas I only received those of a few short years. But this is by the way.

  My chambers were up stairs, at No. - Wall street. At one end, they looked upon the white wall of the interior of a spacious skylight shaft, penetrating the building from top to bottom.

  This view might have been considered rather tame than otherwise, deficient in what landscape painters call "life." But, if so, the view from the other end of my chambers offered, at least, a contrast, if nothing more. In that direction, my windows commanded an unobstructed view of a lofty brick wall, black by age and everlasting shade; which wall required no spy-glass to bring out its lurking beauties, but, for the benefit of all near-sighted spectators, was pushed up to within ten feet of my window panes. Owing to the great height of the surrounding buildings, and my chambers being on the second floor, the interval between this wall and mine not a little resembled a huge square cistern.

  At the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby, I had two persons as copyists in my [pg 035]

  employment, and a promising lad as an office-boy. First, Turkey; second, Nippers; third, Ginger Nut. These may seem names, the like of which are not usually found in the Directory. In truth, they were nicknames, mutually
conferred upon each other by my three clerks, and were deemed expressive of their respective persons or characters. 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 o'clock, meridian-his dinner hour-it blazed like a grate full of Christmas coals; and continued blazing-but, as it were, with a gradual wane-till six o'clock, P.M., or thereabouts; after which, I saw no more of the proprietor of the face, which, gaining its meridian with the sun, seemed to set with it, to rise, culminate, and decline the following day, with the like regularity and undiminished glory. There are many singular coincidences I have known in the course of my life, not the least among which was the fact, that, exactly when Turkey displayed his fullest beams from his red and radiant countenance, just then, too, at that [pg 036] critical moment, began the daily period when I considered his business capacities as seriously disturbed for the remainder of the twenty-four hours. Not that he was absolutely idle, or averse to business, then; far from it. The difficulty was, he was apt to be altogether too energetic. There was a strange, inflamed, flurried, flighty recklessness of activity about him. He would be incautious in dipping his pen into his inkstand. All his blots upon my documents were dropped there after twelve o'clock, meridian. Indeed, not only would he be reckless, and sadly given to making blots in the afternoon, but, some days, he went further, and was rather noisy. At such times, too, his face flamed with augmented blazonry, as if cannel coal had been heaped on anthracite. He made an unpleasant racket with his chair; spilled his sand-box; in mending his pens, impatiently split them all to pieces, and threw them on the floor in a sudden passion; stood up, and leaned over his table, boxing his papers about in a most indecorous manner, very sad to behold in an elderly man like him. Nevertheless, as he was in many ways a most valuable person to me, and all the [pg 037] time before twelve o'clock, meridian, was the quickest, steadiest creature, too, accomplishing a great deal of work in a style not easily to be matched-for these reasons, I was willing to overlook his eccentricities, though, indeed, occasionally, I remonstrated with him. I did this very gently, however, because, though the civilest, nay, the blandest and most reverential of men in the morning, yet, in the afternoon, he was disposed, upon provocation, to be slightly rash with his tongue-in fact, insolent. Now, valuing his morning services as I did, and resolved not to lose them-yet, at the same time, made uncomfortable by his inflamed ways after twelve o'clock-and being a man of peace, unwilling by my admonitions to call forth unseemly retorts from him, I took upon me, one Saturday noon (he was always worse on Saturdays) to hint to him, very kindly, that, perhaps, now that he was growing old, it might be well to abridge his labors; in short, he need not come to my chambers after twelve o'clock, but, dinner over, had best go home to his lodgings, and rest himself till tea-time. But no; he insisted upon his afternoon devotions. His [pg 038] countenance became intolerably fervid, as he oratorically assured me-gesticulating with a long ruler at the other end of the room-that if his services in the morning were useful, how indispensable, then, in the afternoon?