And they took the sacred ikon of the Holy Mother of God of Smolensk, the pleader for the grief-stricken, and carried it to the famous field of Borodino, and, bowing down before it, with tearful eyes, they cried: "O Most Holy Mother of God, thou art our life and our hope!

Round about us on the walls were a multiplicity of brightly coloured ikons, pictures of the abbot, of Tsars, of miraculous happenings and last judgments.

The pinewood fire flashes fitfully on a masterpiece of Vereschágin's, which stands on an easel by the hearth, and the massive gold "ikon," [A] encrusted with diamonds and precious stones, in the corner.