midnight
She was buried -- not in a vault , but in an ordinary grave in the village of her nativity . Filled with despair , and still inflamed by the memory of a profound attachment , the lover journeys from the capital to the remote province in which the village lies , with the romantic purpose of disinterring the corpse , and possessing himself of its luxuriant tresses . He reaches the grave . At midnight he unearths the coffin , opens it , and is in the act of detaching the hair , when he is arrested by the unclosing of the beloved eyes . In fact , the lady had been buried alive . Vitality had not altogether departed , and she was aroused by the caresses of her lover from the lethargy which had been mistaken for death . He bore her frantically to his lodgings in the village .