Vladimir Nabokov. The Luzhin Defense (№ 459830)

But no one had yet been able to get to the bottom of what was most captivating in it: it was the mysterious ability of the soul to perceive in life only what once attracted and tormented in childhood, at that time when the soul’s sense of smell is unmistakable; look for the funny and touching; to constantly feel unbearable, tender pity for a creature living helplessly and miserably, to feel, a thousand miles away, how in some Sicily a thin-legged donkey with a shaggy belly is being roughly beaten. When she actually met the offended creature, there was a feeling of a legendary eclipse, when an inexplicable night sets in, and ashes fly, and blood appears on the walls - and it seemed that if now - right now - you don’t help, you won’t be able to stop someone else’s torment , the existence of which in such a world conducive to happiness is impossible to explain, she herself will suffocate, die, her heart will not stand it. And therefore she lived in constant secret excitement, constantly anticipating a new hobby or a new pity, and they said about her that she adores dogs and is always ready to lend money - and listening to petty rumors, she felt like in childhood, during that game when you leave the room, and others invent various opinions about you. And among the players, among those to whom she came out after being in the next room (where you sit, waiting to be called, and honestly hum something, so as not to overhear, or open a random book, and, like a released spring, it jumps out a piece of a novel, the end of an incomprehensible conversation), among these people, whose opinion it was necessary to guess, there was now a man, rather silent, heavy on his feet, completely unknown what he thought about her.