What is to be Done? by Nikolay Chernyshevsky

Slowly, unobservably, this discovery began to evolve itself in her mind. All the time there accumulated small, almost undistinguishable, impressions made by Kirsánof's words and actions, to which no one else would have given any heed, which she herself scarcely noticed, for they were only supposed and suspected. Slowly this question, "Why did he avoid them almost three years? " began to interest her mind. Slowly the idea was confirmed that such a man could not have stayed away from any petty grounds of self-conceit, because he is absolutely free from it. And, moreover, not knowing why she thought of this, still more obscurely and slowly arose from the silent depths of her life into her consciousness, the question, "Why am I thinking about him? What is he to me?"

And here, one time after dinner, Viéra Pavlovna was sitting in her room, sewing and thinking, and she was thinking very calmly, and she was not thinking at all of him, but of something quite different, connected with her household, and about the shop and about her teaching, and gradually, gradually, her thoughts were drawn to the matter concerning which, without being conscious of it, her thoughts were more and more often drawn. There came up recollections, little questions began to present themselves; they multiplied, and here they are in thousands, finding place in her thoughts; and still they grow and grow, and they go to form one question, the form of which becomes clearer and clearer. "What has got into me? what am I thinking about? what am I feeling? " and Viéra Pavlovna's fingers forget to sew, and the sewing slips from her drooping hands, and Viéra Pavlovna grew a shade paler, then she blushed; she grew still paler, then the fire touched her flushed cheeks. The next moment they were white as snow, and with wandering eyes she ran in to her husband, sat herself on his knees, tremblingly threw her arms around his neck, laid her head on his shoulder, so that it might support her head and hide her face, and with choking voice she said, "My dear, I love him," and she began to weep.