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And every time he had stumbled against life itself he had shrunk

away from it. Now he experienced a feeling akin to that of a man

who, while calmly crossing a precipice by a bridge, should

suddenly discover that the bridge is broken, and that there is a

chasm below. That chasm was life itself, the bridge that

artificial life in which Alexey Alexandrovitch had lived. For the

first time the question presented itself to him of the

possibility of his wife's loving someone else, and he was

horrified at it.