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...."

And glancing at his master's eyes glaring at him with anger and
astonishment, he cleared his throat guiltily and went on:

"It's a sin, of course, but there--what is one to do?... You've
forbidden us to have s