Possibly, indeed, his adventure may have been at the bottom of the ridiculous tale about the old woman, that is, as the gossip went on growing he was transformed into this old dame.
What I find most difficult to understand is how he came to slip away from me as soon as he got into the square.

As I had a misgiving of something very unpleasant, I wanted to take him round the square straight to the entrance to the governor's, but my own curiosity was roused, and I stopped only for one minute to question the first person I came across, and suddenly I looked round and found Stepan Trofimovitch no longer at my side.

Instinctively I darted off to look for him in the most dangerous place; something made me feel that his sledge, too, was flying downhill.

And I did, as a fact, find him in the very centre of things.

I remember I seized him by the arm; but he looked quietly and proudly at me with an air of immense authority.
_"Cher,"_ he pronounced in a voice which quivered on a breaking note, "if they are dealing with people so unceremoniously before us, in an open square, what is to be expected from that man, for instance...