You were fated some day to get away from this Americanized art and attempt to create something less vulgar, less miserably commonplace, and infuse a little spirituality into it.
"In all your books you have fallen on our _fin de siecle_--our _queue du siecle_--tooth and nail.

But, Lord! a man soon gets tired of whacking something that doesn't fight back but merely goes its own way repeating its offences.

You needed to escape into another epoch and get your bearings while waiting for a congenial subject to present itself.

That explains your spiritual disarray of the last few months and your immediate recovery as soon as you stumbled onto Giles de Rais." Des Hermies had diagnosed him accurately.

The day on which Durtal had plunged into the frightful and delightful latter mediaeval age had been the dawn of a new existence.