In this excerpt , the eternal footman is most likely an allusion to

I've taken a test on this, your answer would be DEATH.

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Allusion and illusion. an allusion is an indirect reference, whereas an illusion is something that is unreal or incorrect. each of the nouns has a related verb form: allude “to refer indirectly to,” and illude (not a very common word), which may mean “to delude or deceive” or “to subject to an illusion.”