I promised to move the mountain, and I did so, lifting a stone from one end and depositing it at the other.

The daughters of the sultan were unmoved; they had come out to watch me, presumably at their father’s behest. But I could see from their eyes that they would have been disappointed whatever I had done; their faces transmitted a dispassionate refusal to be satisfied..

"I've seen you kind of girls before," I said deprecatingly, refusing them uniqueness or importance. In response, the one furthest from me took off her coat and folded it in her arms. It was true that now she looked a little less like her sisters, but the build, the face, the hair was the same. Though thick-set, her body had a strange kind of sensuality, everything about it defiant and strong. Ruddy, I decided - a ruddy beauty. She was a sultan's daughter, but she looked like a gipsy.

"So you think you're the measure of me?" she said. "I could crush you between my thighs." She smiled a peculiar smile - half provocation, half amusement, as if she would have rather liked me to put her to the test.

But I knew that this belonged to a different story, that I would not have the sultan's daughter in the cowshed, the saltiness of her skin among the smell of hay and molasses, even though I had moved the mountain and so, in theory, could have anything I wanted. I looked at her again, trying to decipher from her face what exactly it was that I was unequal to.

"You can't even cross the space from there to here," she added. Evidently to demonstrate how it should be done, she walked up to me confidently, and, taking my chin in her hand, raised my head so that I was forced to look her in the eyes.

"I can do it, but you can't," she said. "Why don't you take your mountain back with you? After all, if it's only taken you a moment to move it, it shouldn't take so very long to pack it away again."

I had been expecting a different reproach, and one which ultimately would have hurt me more. But so certain was she of her power in general, that she failed to realise a specific ascendancy that she might have had over me at that moment. With mock humility, I opened my rucksack and, having paused to consider things for a moment, started to pack away a few of the stones at the base of the mountain. Of course, my task would be lengthy, but there is an art to packing. Pack something right, and there will always be space for something else. True, the mountain might seem very large, and the backpack rather small, but every stone is a different shape, so no one will ever be able to say: “It can hold this many, and no more.” Something can always be rearranged or moved aside.

At first the girl shook her head, then, seeming to understand, she started to laugh softly. It was a pleasant laugh which didn't really suit her - sincere, gentle, and unreflecting. Meanwhile, I was wondering which of the sultan's daughters would marry first, and what strategy the suitor would use to move her heart.