The cells in this prison were heated from the corridor outside by large stoves, and the temperature was kept high to prevent the exudation of moisture on the walls. It was necessary to close the stove doors very soon and while the coal was blazing, with the result that asphyxiating gases were generated and the inmates ran the risk of being suffocated. An idea prevailed that the authorities purposely caused these mephitic gases to enter the cells so that the prisoners might be poisoned, but this was an exaggeration with no foundation in fact. The food at one time was good, but Kropotkin says that it deteriorated, and no provisions were permitted to be brought in from outside except the Christmas and Eastertide doles of white bread, charitably given by compassionate merchants. Books, if approved, might be received from relatives, and there was a small prison library. Out-of-door exercise was allowed daily from half an hour to forty minutes, but in the short daylight of the northern winter it was limited to twenty minutes twice a week. On the whole, detention in the Trubetzkoi Bastion was not, according to Kropotkin, “exceedingly bad, although always hard.” One of its worst features was the unduly prolonged solitary confinement, which was extended to two or three years, far beyond the limit ordinarily prescribed in modern civilised countries. Another terrible infliction was the dead silence compelled. “Not a word is heard,” wrote Leo Deutsch, “the silence is intense. No one could imagine that men live here year after year. Only the chimes of the clock upon the ear, sound out every quarter of an hour the national hymn, ‘How glorious is our Lord in Zion.’” As to this, Kropotkin says, “The cacophony of the discordant bells is horrible during rapid changes of temperature, and I do not wonder that nervous people consider these bells as one of the plagues of the fortress.” The same writer bears witness to the taciturnity of the officials. “If you address a word to the warder who brings you your clothes for walking in the yard, if you ask him what the weather is, he never answers. The only human being with whom I exchanged a few words every morning was the colonel (governor) who came to write down what I wanted to buy: tobacco or paper. But he never dared to enter into conversation, as he himself was always watched by some of the warders.”