User:AffectionateCorpse/sandbox

"Laßt die Todten Ruhen", or as it is known in the English language, "Wake Not the Dead", is a short work of prose fiction by German dramatist Ernst Raupach.

Characters

 * Walter: a naive young noble with a restless disposition
 * Brunhilda: passionate, imperious and dark-haired first wife; the vampire.
 * Swanhilda: mild, patient, blonde-haired second wife and mother of his children
 * Walter and Swanhilda's children: a girl who takes after her mother, and boy as restless as his father
 * The sorcerer
 * The dark-clothed huntress: closely resembles Swanhilda,

Plot
Walter is at the grave of Brunhilda, lamenting her dying so shortly after their marriage. Though he has remarried, his union with Swanhilda lacks the fiery passion of his love for Brunhilda, for whom much of his affection is due to their shared love for their children, and he has begun to frequent the grave of his first wife again. One night as he is visiting her grave, he encounters a sorcerer gathering herbs, who tries to comfort him by encouraging Walter to accept mortality. In doing so, he hints that it's possible to resurrect a corpse, but that the result would be far too horrible, and one would soon regret it. Walter beseeches him to raise Brunhilda, at which the sorcerer relents slightly, saying that if Walter is certain he wants it, he should return at midnight the next night, with the parting warning: "wake not the dead".

Enlivened by the hope to be reunited with his dead love, Walter spends a day in happy reminiscence before returning to the graveyard that night. And yet, the sorcerer warns him again not to wake the dead, asking him to return the next night. Walter grows impatient, and when next he returns demands that the sorcerer raise his wife, claiming that he could never abhor Brunhilda. On this third night, the sorcerer draws a circle round the grave while muttering words of enchantment, rolls the stone from the grave and scatters mystical roots into the open earth. When the coffin is magically raised from the earth and its lid flung open, the sorcerer pours blood from a human skull onto the corpse within, exclaiming: "Drink, sleeper, of this warm stream, that thy heart may again beat within thy bosom."