It tells the story of a priest named Romuald who falls in love with Clarimonde, a beautiful woman who turns out to be a vampire.

In English translations the story has been titled "Clarimonde", "The Dead Leman", "The Dreamland Bride", or "The Vampire."

Father Sérapion senses something is off with Romuald and tells him about the legend of the infamous Clarimonde the courtesan, who has recently died.

Clarimonde's health wavers and she seems to be dying, but she is restored after she drinks some of Romuald's blood from an accidental finger cut.

Seeing blood on the corner of her lip, Father Sérapion becomes furious and calls her a demon as he pours holy water on her corpse.

Back in the present, Romuald tells his audience that this was the greatest regret of his life and suggests that his listeners never look at a woman lest they meet the same fate, even as he still misses Clarimonde.

Her reason for returning from the dead is love and her relationship with Romuald has been compared to the Platonic myth of Aristophanes.

[1] Romuald, conflicted about his dual life, can also be regarded in the same manner: dead (or rather not living) during his priestly duties in the day, but alive and vivacious in the evenings as Il signor Romualdo, Clarimonde's lover.

Dreams and nightmares were often analyzed scientifically based on what appeared to the dreamer; for instance, certain colors equated to specific emotional states.

The nightmare, more literally, refers to as a bad dream or a black horse that sits on the chest of men and women at night and suffocates them to cause fear or terror.

The plot of Théophile Gautier's French, romantic short story, "La Morte Amoureuse" focuses on the idea that love can overcome death.

[3] For example, when the protagonist, Romuald, is called to give last rites to a great courtesan who has fallen ill, he recognizes her as Clarimonde.

Both characters fall in love despite the oppositions of both of their worlds; for Romuald, that of God and the church, and for Clarimonde, that of Satan (woman and pleasure).

Femmes fatales are often depicted in medieval literature as an alluring woman who leads men into harmful situations.

Clarimonde is extremely looked down upon by Father Sérapion, and her fate at the end of the story shows that she was not worthy of keeping alive.

[6] Clarimonde is a vampire and like Dracula she represents "the highest symbolic representation of eroticism" in Gautier's short story.

The most famous vampire, Dracula, is often the object of woman's desire but here, the genders are switched and Clarimonde becomes the lover in the story.

The scenes where she sucks on his blood are erotic moments in the story and brings Romuald into a higher state.

In La Morte Amoureuse, the priest who falls in love with Clarimonde experiences a sense of anxiety.