MAHOGANY
433
"I shall not go to the devil."
Pavel Feodorovich Bezdetov slowly turned one glassy eye
to
his
brother and said:
"We cannot talk with cranks.
If
you don't get out, I shall
instruct Stepan to remove you by the scruff of your neck."
Stepan returned
his
brother's glance and shifted slightly in
his chair. Maria Klimovna put her face on her hands and sighed.
Ivan the outcast sat on in silence. Stepan rose reluctantly from
the table and went towards him. The outcast got up in fright
and retreated backwards to the door. Maria Klimovna sighed
again and Yakov Karpovich giggled. Stepan stopped halfway
across the room and the outcast halted, grimacing, by the door.
Stepan took another step towards him and he went outside. Then
from behind the door, he said in a begging voice:
"Well, in that case give me a ruble and twenty five kopecks
for vodka." Stepan glanced at Pavel and Pavel said:
"Give him enough for a half-bottle."
The outcast departed. Maria Klimovna went out of the
gate to see him off and thrust a piece of pie into his hand. Be–
yond the gate the night was black and still. Ozhogov the out–
cast walked to the Volga down dark side-streets, past the mon–
asteries and over vacant lots, along paths which he alone knew.
The night was very black. Ivan talked to himself, muttering in–
distinctly. He went down to the brick-works belonging to the
, Industrial Combine; here he crawled through a gap in the fence
and made his way through the clay-pits. Amid the clay-pits was
a
kiln
and it was working. Ivan crawled underground into the
hollow of the kiln; it was hot and stifling here and a red light
glowed from cracks in the doors of the furnace. Here, on the
bare earth, sprawled a band of ragged men with matted hair as
thick as felt: these were Ivan Ozhogov's communists who had a
tacit agreement with the Industrial Combine whereby they fired,
without wages, the kiln of the brickworks-the
kiln
in which the
bricks were baked-and in return lived here, near .the furnace,
free
of charge; these were men for whom time had stopped in
