Here lies my transgression! O Lord!"

He was numb with terror, anger, and shame... What was he to do now?
What would his wife say if she found out? What would his colleagues at
the office say? His Excellency would be sure to dig him in the ribs,
guffaw, and say: "I congratulate you!... He-he-he! Though your beard
is gray, your heart is gay.... You are a rogue, Semyon Erastovitch!"
The whole colony of summer visitors would know his secret now, and
probably the respectable mothers of families would shut their doors to
him. Such incidents always get into the papers, and the humble name of
Miguev would be published all over Russia....

The middle window of the bungalow was open and he could distinctly hear
his wife, Anna Filippovna, laying the table for supper; in the yard
close to the gate Yermolay, the porter, was plaintively strumming on the
balalaika. The baby had only to wake up and begin to cry, and the secret
would be discovered. Miguev was conscious of an overwhelming desire to
make haste.

"Haste, haste!..." he muttered, "this minute, before anyone sees.
I'll carry it away and lay it on somebody's doorstep...."

Miguev took the bundle in one hand and quietly, with a deliberate step
to avoid awakening suspicion, went down the street....

"A wonderfully nasty position!" he reflected, trying to assume an air of
unconcern. "A collegiate assessor walking down the street with a baby!
Good heavens! if anyone sees me and understands the position, I am
done for.... I'd better put it on this doorstep.... No, stay, the
windows are open and perhaps someone is looking. Where shall I put it?
I know! I'll take it to the merchant Myelkin's.... Merchants are rich
people and tenderhearted; very likely they will say thank you and adopt
it."

And Miguev made up his mind to take the baby to Myelkin's, although the
merchant's villa was in the furthest street, close to the river.

"If only it does not begin screaming or wriggle out of the bundle,"
thought the collegiate assessor. "This is indeed a pleasant surprise!
Here I am carrying a human being under my arm as though it were a
portfolio. A human being, alive, with soul, with feelings like anyone
else.... If by good luck the Myelkins adopt him, he may turn out
somebody.... Maybe he will become a professor, a great general, an
author.... Anything may happen! Now I am carrying him under my arm
like a bundle of rubbish, and perhaps in thirty or forty years I may not
dare to sit d