This is one of Amos Oz's earlier works and the reader can already notice his amazing skill with words. The book contains two stories: The first one takes place in Medieval Europe and tells the story of a crusade that begins after several ominous events spread through the villages.With his unique language Oz leads the reader through the crusade that soon becomes a horrifying descent into the darkest pits of human cruelty, primal fears and blind violence and torture unto the eventual tragic ending of the novella. The second story describes the small, uneventful life of a lonely old man and his fantasies - about the nurse in the outpatient clinic, about an Israeli military force to be sent back in time to take revenge from the Nazis etc. Reading this early book exposes the reader to Oz's virtuoso ability with words that can either pound like a sledgehammer or flutter on one's face like the wind from a butterfly's flight