Anna Karenina

simple incident for some
reason struck everyone as strange. Having begun talking about common
acquaintances in Peterburg, Anna got up quickly.
{PART_ONE|CHAPTER_XXI ^paragraph 15}
"She is in my album," she said; "and, by the way, I'll show you my
Seriozha," she added, with a mother's smile of pride.
Toward ten o'clock, when she usually said good night to her son, and
often, before going to a ball put him to bed herself, she felt
depressed at being so far from him; and whatever she was talking
about, she kept coming back in thought to her curly-headed Seriozha.
She longed to look at his photograph and talk of him. Seizing the
first pretext, she got up, and with her light, resolute step went
for her album. The stairs up to her room came out on the landing of
the great warm main staircase.
Just as she was leaving the drawing room, a ring was heard in the
hall.
"Who can that be?" said Dolly.
"It's too early for me to be fetched, and for anyone else it's too
late," observed Kitty.
{PART_ONE|CHAPTER_XXI ^paragraph 20}
"It's sure to be someone with papers for me," put in Stepan
Arkadyevich. When Anna was passing the top of the staircase, a servant
was running up to announce the visitor, while the visitor himself
was standing under a lamp. Anna, glancing down, at once recognized
Vronsky, and a strange feeling of pleasure and, at the same time, of
some dread, stirred in her heart. He stood there, without taking off
his coat, and pulling something out of his pocket. At the instant when
she was just halfway up the stairs he raised his eyes, caught sight of
her, and the expression of his face changed to embarrassment and
dismay. With a slight inclination of her head she passed, hearing
behind her Stepan Arkadyevich's loud voice calling him to come up, and
the quiet, soft, and calm voice of Vronsky refusing.
When Anna returned with the album he was already gone, and Stepan
Arkadyevich was telling them that he had called to inquire about the
dinner they were giving next day to a foreign celebrity.
"And nothing would induce him to come up. What a queer fellow he
is!" added Stepan Arkadyevich.
Kitty blushed. She thought that she was the only person who knew why
he had come, and why he would not come up. "He has been at home,"
she thought, "and didn't find me, and thought I should be here, but he
did not come up because he thought it late, and Anna's here."
All of them looked at each other, saying nothing, and began to
look at Anna's album.
{PART_ONE|CHAPTER_XXI ^paragraph 25}
There was nothing either exceptional or strange in a man's calling
at half-past nine on a friend to inquire details of a proposed
dinner party and not coming in, yet it seemed strange to all of
them. And to Anna it seemed stranger and more unpleasant than to any
of the others.