Yet his imprisonment had been rendered as tolerable as possible. He could have his meals brought in from outside and obtain from the library such books as there were.
How he longed for a talk with Juve; but that detective was rigorously excluded from the prison. Juve was to be a witness at the trial.
As Fandor was to conduct his own case there were no consultations with his counsel to relieve the monotony of the days; nor were newspapers allowed him. He had no friends or relatives to visit and console him or divert him.
In his sleepless hours Fandor's thoughts would revert to his past, to the frightful drama of his boyhood, to the assassination of the Marquise de Langrune, when he, a youth of eighteen, had been suspected, had even been accused of committing this murder, the accuser being his own father![8]
[8] See Fantômas: vol. i, Fantômas Series.
He remembered that, commencing the very day after the discovery of the crime, his existence had been that of a pariah flying from the police, from those who knew him; remembered how he had assumed disguise after disguise, denied by his father, ignored by his mother, an unfortunate woman who had lost her reason and was shut up in a lunatic asylum.
The only gleam of happiness which had come to illumine the dreary darkness of his youth resolved itself into a memory picture of a pale dawn when the lad, Charles Rambert, leaving a wine-shop, had been caught by Juve, who, believing in his innocence, had taken him under his protection, had given him the name of Jérôme Fandor, and helped him to start a new life.[9]
[9] See The Exploits of Juve> vol. ii, Fantômas Series.
From then onwards that timid lad, disheartened by his misfortunes, had regained courage and hope, and had boldly plunged into the struggle to live.