The Loreli: A Ghost Story

Karl came to live with me a few years ago when his parents died. My nephew was good hearted, but slow and he took the deaths of his parents hard. My little farm is isolated, even from the little village where the train stops twice a week. Karl brooded all that first winter, and the winters here in northern Norway are very long. When the days finally lengthened into spring, Karl's depression kept the darkness close to us. I had to go to Oslo for business, so I took Karl on his first train ride in hopes that it might lift his gloom.

We took a hotel room in Oslo for the night, and I finished my business the same afternoon we arrived. Karl's eyes were wide at crowds and shop windows filled with wonders. The contrasts to our little farm seemed to lift his spirits. On the evening of our departure I took Karl to a cabaret near the train station. Inside it was dark and filled with pungent tobacco smoke. Every table was filled with merry-makers drinking and laughing. Presently, a small band began to play, and the noise in the room quieted down somewhat as the lights dimmed.

Ah, the Loreli! A vivacious coquette with the voice of an angel swept onto the tiny stage. A scarlet satin dress cut to reveal unblemished skin. With a little bow and a wink, she began to sing a haunting love song. The crowd became quieter, but the effect on Karl was remarkable. His pallid face took on a ruddy glow and his eyes grew wide. His applause was easily the loudest when the song ended. He clearly neither saw, nor heard the crowd; his attention was completely on the Loreli. When the act was finished, there were catcalls and whistles. Some drunken oaf could be heard to make an indecent suggestion, and Karl was on the man like a lightening bolt. The crowd parted to watch the hayseed defend the honor of the demimonde. From out of nowhere the bouncer appeared and struck Karl a blow to the side of his head with a wooden hammer. I leapt to Karl's defense, but the police arrived and a cabaret peace was restored. My explanations mollified the police and they let me take Karl straight to the train depot.

Karl didn't begin to come around until we were almost back to the village. He shook his head and tried to focus his eyes. "Where are we, Uncle? Where is the Loreli? I must go to her. My life was nothing, and then she appeared." It was clear that Karl, like many another young country boy, had been swept off of his feet by his first experience of the big city. "Stop the train. I must go back, or I'll die". I could see that something must be done to calm the lad, or he would be of no use on the farm. Just to shut him up I said the first thing that came into my old head. "The Loreli was killed in the riot you started in the café. She is no more; you must forget her and come back home. The police will be looking for you. There are other girls in the village, and one day you will have my farm." Karl fell back onto his bench and began to cry into his fists. I thought that would pass, after all it would hurt less than for Karl to know that such women care nothing for poor farm boys.

All during our short growing season Karl did his farm work, but his eyes always seemed far away. One morning I asked him if he was getting enough sleep, and he told me that his nights were filled with dreams of the Loreli. As the season progressed, Karl's dreams of the Loreli became more frequent and intense. Karl would go off to drive in the cows and be gone for hours. Once I caught him mumbling to himself and he told me that he was talking to the Loreli, and that her ghost appeared to him often. The days grew shorter, and the twilight longer, Karl's obsession with the Loreli grew. In the long gray prelude to night Karl took to wandering over the plain and through our woods. I tried talking to him, but he was convinced that the ghost of the Loreli was his constant companion. Karl could no longer separate his dreams from waking. "Uncle, I reach out for her but she is always just beyond my reach". I told him that it was just a dream, and that ghosts don't exist. There are other girls in the village that would make good wives. He was not interested. Karl continued trying to catch up with the fleeing spirit as the days grew shorter and the snows began to fall. I tried to keep him in our house, but he took every opportunity to slip out in search of the Loreli. Just as we reached the longest night of the year, Karl came running to me. "Uncle! Uncle, tonight I almost caught her. My fingers brushed against her dress!"

I fed him a nice big bowl of hot soup and tucked him into bed. Then I sat by my fire worrying over what to do. The lad was clearly driven mad by his obsession with the ghost of a cabaret singer that he had seen once months before. If he didn't start getting better soon I would have to take him to the doctor. Finally I went to my own rest, but it was disturbed by dreams of Karl's parents shaming me with their fingers. I woke up shivering. The room was cold and a terrible chill raised my skin into goose bumps. The door to the fields was open and a little drift of snow lay on the floor. Karl's bed was empty.

I went out with foreboding to hunt for him. His tracks were almost filled with snow, so he must have passed a long time previously. It seemed to me the coldest morning of my life. I found him lying in a clearing of the forest about a mile from the house covered with a blanket of snow. He was dead of course. Frozen with his hands outreached, as if to catch the flowing scarf of the ghostly Loreli. It took a long time to hitch my horse to the sled and bring his body into the village for burial. The village church would arrange a funeral when the ground thawed out in the spring.

I stumbled out of the church just as the train was pulling out on its way to the village of Nordsfeld. It was then that I saw her standing alone on the platform. "Why have you come here?" I asked. She told me then that she had been haunted ever since our visit to the cabaret by the handsome young farmer who fought for her honor. She was an orphan driven to the stage as the only alternative to prostitution. When she saw Karl in the cabaret it was to him alone that she sang. She had no way of knowing who it was who had captured her heart, but she set about trying to learn his identity and how to find him. Only the day before she was able to learn that he lived near this village. Her eyes were sparkling, "Since you were there that evening, you must know where to find him".