Beyond the gate, the traveller came at last to a range of mountains.
For many days he had followed the path between them, and the path had become narrower until it ended at a steep wall of rock.
The traveller stood before it.
“There must be a way through,” he said.
He walked along the foot of the mountain.
The wall continued.
He climbed a little way, but the stone was smooth and offered no hold.
He tried another place.
Then another.
By midday, his hands were bleeding.
“This mountain affords no passage,” he said.
At once he remembered the stone seat.
Perhaps, he thought, that was only true for him.
He sat down and waited.
Before long, a goat appeared high above him.
It descended a slope the traveller would not have dared to approach.
Its hooves found narrow ledges invisible from below.
Within moments it had crossed the face of the mountain and vanished among the rocks.
The traveller watched in amazement.
“So,” he said, “the mountain affords passage after all.”
He began climbing again.
The mountain did not agree.
He slipped.
He fell.
He tried another route.
The stone turned him back.
At last, exhausted, he sat beneath an overhang.
A bird flew across the valley.
The traveller looked at the mountain, then at the bird.
“For you,” he said, “there is no mountain at all.”
The bird did not answer.
Later that day, he found the old woman gathering water from a narrow stream.
“The mountain refuses me,” he said.
She looked towards the cliffs.
“Does it?”
“I have tried to climb it.”
“And?”
“I cannot.”
She filled her vessel.
“A goat can.”
“Yes.”
“A bird can cross it.”
“Yes.”
“And the stream has found a way through.”
The traveller looked down.
Far below the mountain, the water had cut a narrow channel through the stone.
“So the mountain permits some things and refuses others.”
The old woman shook her head.
“The mountain does not permit.”
“But surely—”
She placed her hand against the rock.
“It stands.”
The traveller was silent.
“It has height,” she continued. “Weight. Hardness. Shape. Some parts crumble. Others do not. Water finds weaknesses. Roots enter cracks. Goats find ledges.”
“And I?”
“You have hands.”
The traveller looked at them.
“And feet.”
He looked at the steep rock above him.
“And no wings.”
The old woman lifted her vessel.
“Between what the mountain is and what you are, some things can happen.”
“And others cannot.”
“Yes.”
The traveller thought about this.
“Then the possibilities come from both.”
The old woman smiled.
“That would be too easy.”
He frowned.
She pointed to the mountain.
“Suppose you decide that you can walk through it.”
“I cannot.”
“Why not?”
“Because it is solid.”
“And if you decide very strongly?”
The traveller laughed despite himself.
“Still no.”
“Then your deciding is not enough.”
She pointed towards the stream.
“Suppose the water decides to flow uphill.”
“It cannot.”
“And the goat?”
“It cannot fly.”
The old woman nodded.
“Then perhaps the country is not waiting for its inhabitants to imagine what is possible.”
The traveller looked again at the mountain.
For a moment he felt relieved.
The stone had not misunderstood him.
It had not ignored his wishes.
It had simply been stone.
Yet this did not make the mountain meaningless.
The traveller thought of the goat.
Of the bird.
Of the stream.
Of himself.
The same mountain stood before them all.
But it was not the same country for each.
For the goat, there were paths where he saw only walls.
For the bird, there was open air.
For the water, there were cracks.
For him, there was resistance.
The mountain had not changed.
Neither had they.
And yet what could happen was different.
That evening, the traveller walked along the valley until he found a narrow pass.
There, the mountain could be crossed.
He stopped at its entrance.
The path did not invite him.
The mountain had not decided to become helpful.
The pass was simply there: wide enough for his body, firm enough for his feet.
He entered.
As he walked between the high walls of stone, he began to understand something he had not understood before.
The country did not contain possibilities like objects stored in rooms.
Nor did its inhabitants carry possibilities inside themselves like secret tools.
Possibility appeared in the meeting.
But the meeting was not a negotiation.
The mountain brought its shape.
The traveller brought his body.
The world did not yield to him.
He did not invent the world.
Between them, a path either became possible—
or it did not.
And high above, where the goat moved easily among the ledges, the mountain remained entirely indifferent to the lesson it had given him.
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