" I just checked that crosshead, Alexander Vassilievich,” I told him once when he started to examine the block between a piston rod and a connecting rod just after I had done the same thing.

“And I want to do it myself,” Maltsev answered, smiling, and there was a kind of sadness in his smile which startled me.

I later understood the meaning of this sadness and the reason for his always holding himself aloof from us. He felt a superiority over us because he understood the locomotive better than we did and because he didn’t believe that I or anybody else could learn the secret of his skill, the secret of seeing at the same time the swallow flying by and the signal ahead, being aware at the same moment in time of the track, the whole train, and the power of the locomotive. Maltsev realized of course that we could outdo even him in our zeal, but he couldn’t imagine that we could love the engine more than he did or drive the train better - anything better, he thought, would be impossible. And this was why Maltsev was sad with us; he was lonesome with his talent, as if he lived all by himself, not knowing how to express it to us so we could understand. "

― Andrei Platonov , The Fierce and Beautiful World