“If I were a decent, honest man,” he thought, “I should damn everything, go with this baby to Anna Filippovna, fall on my knees before her, and say: ‘Forgive me! I have sinned! Torture me, but we won’t ruin an innocent child. We have no children; let us adopt him!’ She’s a good sort, she’d consent.... And then my child would be with me.... Ech!” He reached the Myelkins’ villa and stood still hesitating. He imagined himself in the parlor at home, sitting reading the paper while a little boy with an aquiline nose played with the tassels of his dressing gown. At the same time visions forced themselves on his brain of his winking colleagues, and of his Excellency digging him in the ribs and guffawing.... Besides the pricking of his conscience, there was something warm, sad, and tender in his heart.... Cautiously the collegiate assessor laid the baby on the verandah step and waved his hand. Again he felt a spasm run over his face.... “Forgive me, old fellow! I am a scoundrel,” he muttered. “Don’t remember evil against me.” He stepped back, but immediately cleared his throat resolutely and said: “Oh, come what will! Damn it all! I’ll take him, and let people say what they like!” Miguev took the baby and strode rapidly back. “Let them say what they like,” he thought. “I’ll go at once, fall on my knees, and say: ‘Anna Filippovna!’ Anna is a good sort, she’ll understand.... And we’ll bring him up.... If it’s a boy we’ll call him Vladimir, and if it’s a girl we’ll call her Anna! Anyway, it will be a comfort in our old age.” And he did as he determined. Weeping and almost faint with shame and terror, full of hope and vague rapture, he went into his bungalow, went up to his wife, and fell on his knees before her. “Anna Filippovna!” he said with a sob, and he laid the baby on the floor. “Hear me before you punish.... I have sinned! This is my child.... You remember Agnia? Well, it was the devil drove me to it. ...” And, almost unconscious with shame and terror, he jumped up without waiting for an answer, and ran out into the open air as though he had received a thrashing.... “I’ll stay here outside till she calls me,” he thought. “I’ll give her time to recover, and to think it over....” The porter Yermolay passed him with his balalaika, glanced at him and shrugged his shoulders. A minute later he passed him again, and again he shrugged his shoulders. “Here’s a go! Did you ever!” he muttered grinning. “Aksinya, the washer-woman, was here just now, Semyon Erastovitch. The silly woman put her baby down on the steps here, and while she was indoors with me, someone took and carried off the baby... Who’d have thought it!” “What? What are you saying?” shouted Miguev at the top of his voice. Yermolay, interpreting his master’s wrath in his own fashion, scratched his head and heaved a sigh. “I am sorry, Semyon Erastovitch,” he said, “but it’s the summer holidays,... one can’t get on without... without a woman, I mean....”