I began to grind the pigments I needed, the soft brownish-red powder, and then to mix it over and over with the yoke and water until every tiny fragment of pigment was broken up and the paint was smooth and perfectly thin and clear. On to the yellow, and then to the red.

They fought over me. My Father lifted his fist to the Elder, but I didn't bother to look up. He wouldn't dare. He kicked my leg in his desperation, sending a cramp through my muscle, but I said nothing. I went on mixing the paint.

One of the priests had come round to my left, and he slipped a clean whitewashedpanel of wood in front of me, primed and ready for the holy image.

At last I was ready. I bowed my head. I made the Sign of the Cross in our way, touching my right shoulder first, not my left.

"Dear God, give me the power, give me the vision, give my hands the tutelage which only your love can give!" At once I had the brush with no consciousness of having picked it up, and the brush began to race, tracing out the oval of the Virgin's face, and then the sloping lines of her shoulders and then the outline of her folded hands.

Now when their gasps came, they were tributes to the painting. My Father laughed in gloating satisfaction.

"Ah, my Andrei, my sharp-tongued, sarcastic, nasty ungrateful little genius of God."

"Thank you, Father," I whispered bitingly, right from the middle of my trancelike concentration, as I myself watched the work of the brush in awe. There her hair, cleaving close to the scalp and parted in the middle. I needed no instrument to make the outline of her halo perfectly round.

The priests held the clean brushes for me. One held a clean rag in his hands. I snatched up a brush for the red color which I then mixed with white paste, until it was the appropriate color of flesh.

"Isn't that a miracle!"

"That's just the point," said the Elder between clenched teeth. "It's a miracle, Brother Ivan, and he will do what God wills."

"He won't wall himself up in here, damn you, not as long as I'm alive. He's coming with me into the wild lands."

I burst out laughing. "Father," I said sneering at him. "My place is here."

"He's the best shot in the family, and he's coming with me into the wild lands," said my Father to the others, who had flown into a flurry of protests and negations all around.

"Why do you give Our Blessed Mother that tear in her eye, Brother Andrei?"

"It's God who gives her the tear," said one of the others.

"It is the Mother of All Sorrows. Ah, see the beautiful folds of her cloak."