Bewildered, he picked himself up; very few had seen him fall, but a little crowd gathered for all that.

One asked if the man was drunk, and Vandover, terrified lest the policeman should call the patrol wagon, hurried off to a basement barber shop near by, where he brushed his clothes, still bewildered, confused, wondering how it had happened.
The fearful nervous crisis which Vandover had undergone had passed off slowly.

Little by little, bit by bit, he had got himself in hand again.
However, the queer numbness in his head remained, and as soon as he concentrated his attention on any certain line of thought, as soon as he had read for any length of time, especially if late at night, the numbness increased.

Somewhere back of his eyes a strange blurring mist would seem to rise; he would find it impossible to keep his mind fixed upon any subject; the words of a printed page would little by little lose their meaning.

At first this had been a source of infinite terror to him.