From the Orthodox icon and popular lubok to Symbolist poetry and painting, the image of the devil was ubiquitous in Russian art and literature. The narrative poem in A Game in Hell, shown at left, concerns a card game between devils and sinners. The fixed stare and full-page presence of Goncharova's devil on the cover refers blasphemously to religious icons of Christ. Her sinister and absurd devils within play with multiple cultural types, including the archaic devil of Russian icons that pulls sinners to hell, and the parodic secular devil of the lubok, who is outwitted by man. By celebrating these shifting identities, the Futurists playfully conflate the worlds of the sacred and the secular. On page after page, whether silly, sinister, or grotesque, the Futurist devil assumes an ironic and provocative stance.