She was in that highly-wrought state when the reasoning powers act with great rapidity: the state a man is in before a battle or a struggle, in danger, and at the decisive moments of life - those moments when a man shows once and for all what he is worth, that his past was not lived in vain but was a preparation for these moments.

The Works of Leo Tolstoy...: Anna Karénina, tr. by Louise and Aylmer Maude (ed. 1937)