From under the coat his legs protruded in striped pyjamas and heavy hiking boots. He was pulling around him the tails of the old sheepskin coat I sometimes saw him wearing as he worked by the house. There was a crunch of snow, and into my field of vision came the neighbour, whom I call Maladroit. I managed in the darkness to seek out the familiar cold aerosol shape, and thus armed, I switched on the outside light, then looked at the porch through a small side window. Downstairs, in the cubbyhole for the electrical meters, I’ve got the disabling gas Dizzy gave me because of the poachers, and that was what I was now thinking about. As I searched for my slippers in the dark, I could hear that whoever had been banging was now walking around the house, muttering to himself.

I had to sit down and repeat to myself several times: I am at home, it is Night, someone’s banging on the door, and only then did I manage to get a grip on my nerves. Unfortunately it happens to me lately, and is to do with my Ailments. I felt weak and began to reel, as if I were on the point of losing consciousness. I sprang up and stood by the bed, unsteadily, because my sleepy, shaky body couldn’t make the leap from the innocence of sleep into wakefulness.

So when in the middle of the Night I was woken by hammering on the door – violent, immoderate and by that token boding ill – I couldn’t come to.

Meanwhile I fell very fast asleep I helped myself with an infusion of hops, on top of which I took two valerian pills. Had I examined the Ephemerides that evening to see what was happening in the heavens, I wouldn’t have gone to bed at all. I am already at an age and additionally in a state where I must always wash my feet thoroughly before bed, in the event of an ambulance having to take me away in the Night.

She’s reclusive, preferring the company of animals to people, she’s unconventional, believing in the stars, and she is very fond of the poetry of William Blake, from whose work the title of the book is taken. This is an excerpt of a novel narrated by a woman in her mid-60s, who lives in a cottage in a very remote village in south-western Poland.

Plough over the bones of the dead