It was as if the brute in him, like some malicious witch, had stolen away the true offspring of his mind, putting in their place these deformed dwarfs, its own hideous spawn.
Through the numbness and giddiness that gradually came into his head like a poisonous murk he saw one thing clearly: It was gone--his art was gone, the one thing that could save him.

That, too, like all the other good things of his life, he had destroyed.

At some time during those years of debauchery it had died, that subtle, elusive something, delicate as a flower; he had ruined it.

Little by little it had exhaled away, wilting in the air of unrestrained debauches, perishing in the warm musk-laden atmosphere of disreputable houses, defiled by the breath of abandoned women, trampled into the spilt wine-lees of the Imperial, dragged all fouled and polluted through the lowest mire of the great city's vice.
For a moment Vandover felt as though he was losing his hold upon his reason; the return of the hysteria shook him like a dry, light leaf.

He suddenly had a sensation that the room was too small to hold him; he ran, almost reeled, to the open window, drawing his breath deep and fast, inhaling the cool night air, rolling his eyes wildly.
It was night.