"For WHY should I love him?"
It puzzled me to cite a reason off-hand, but, fortunately, Kalinin did not wait for an answer—rather, he went on to ask:
"Have you ever been a footman?"
"No," I replied.
"Then let me tell you that it is peculiarly difficult for a footman to love his neighbour."
"Wherefore?"
"Go and be a footman; THEN you will know. In fact, it is never the case that, if one serves a man, one can love that man.... How steadily the rain persists!"
Indeed, on every hand there was in progress a trickling and a splashing sound as though the weeping earth were venting soft, sorrowful sobs over the departure of summer before winter and its storms should arrive.
"How come you to be travelling the Caucasus?" I asked at length.
"Merely through the fact that my walking and walking has brought me hither," was the reply. "For that matter, everyone ends by heading for the Caucasus."