A mountain window long sat by, in an old mountain house, through which clouds and shadows are looked for and turned into familiar phantoms. The dog, the shaggy dog, who steals away at noon, to return later on and lie, head on paws, by the door. Living, though lifeless, friends that come and go, come and go.
Sitting, sitting, restless sitting.
And the night? Just like the day. Thinking, thinking, always thinking. A wheel that never stops, turned by want of sleep.
The tune of Marianna. To which might be added the mild, firm voice of Bartleby, the scrivener: “I would prefer not to.” Not to compare a copy to its original, not to step round to the Post Office, not to copy at all, not to be a little reasonable, not to leave. His a recurrent theme, a bridge, a chorus to Marianna's telling of strange things; he, in his person, could be one of her strange fancies, brooding, as industry hums around him. A Marius, who, in his mind's eye, in his dead-wall reveries, perhaps sees only ruins.
Bartleby; inflexible, immovable Bartleby: “I would prefer not to.”
A fixture in his employer's chamber, always there, even when he shouldn't be. In a dead-wall stare. Occupied only with thoughts, it seems, behind the screen, of nobody knows what. His history, as with other tasks that are asked of him, he prefers not to answer questions on.
Ah Bartleby! (I echo the narrator.) What kind of cell did you imprison yourself in!
These two narratives, that concerning Marianna of The Piazza and that of Bartleby, as bound in book, join in memory of the departing reader.
But...
Hark! Is that a new faint note I hear? It is, it is, wafted on a sudden breeze, another male voice, less firm and far weaker in tone than Bartleby's, wavering somewhat, but nonetheless decisive: “I cannot go”, repeated.
And neither now can I. For I must know, in fullness, the truth of the circumstances on board the San Dominick from Don Benito's own hand, own lips. I cannot go, I cannot put this third narrative aside until he has escaped and, under oath, given testimony. And when that is given I, like him to Captain Delano must say: “I can go no further; here I must bid you [the reader] adieu”.
Because if I don't, I will hear another Melvillean note and another, perhaps of thunder, perhaps of remote seas against the shores of the Enchanted Isles, perhaps the slow weary draggings of three ponderous tortoises, upon which may follow the sound of a merry feast and of a knife scraping shells.
These notes will never cease to come in Melville's hypnotic tales.
Picture credit: Marius Amid the Ruins of Carthage, John Vanderlyn (source: WikiArt).
Adapted
from journal entries, July 2021, on The Piazza; Bartleby,
the Scrivener; Benito Cereno; The Lightening-Rod Man, The Enchanted
Isles by Herman Melville.
