The Interlopers

“The forest lands of Gradwitz were of wide extent and well stocked with game; the narrow strip of precipitous woodland that lay on its outskirt was not remarkable for the fame it harbored or the shooting it afforded, but it was the most jealously guarded of all its owner’s possessions.”

By juxtaposing the rest of the lands held by Ulrich’s family, the significance of the disputed tract comes into question. It raises questions about the rationale for continuing the family feud as well as about what emotions the conflict is engendering in the adversaries. Later, Ulrich recognizes the insignificance of the parcel and dismisses the feud as foolish.

“The neighbor feud had grown into a personal one since Ulrich had come to be head of his family; if there was a man in the world whom he detested and wished ill to it was Georg Znaeym, the inheritor of the quarrel and the tireless game-snatcher and raider of the disputed border-forest.”

One of the questions raised by the first quotation is answered here: the feud has turned to vehement hatred. The use of the word “inheritor” tells the reader that the quarrel is not the men’s own but one passed down through generations. The labels Ulrich uses for Georg (“game-snatcher and raider”) show that Ulrich views Georg not as a person but as a series of criminal actions and violations.

“The feud might, perhaps, have died down or been compromised if the personal ill-will of the two men had not stood in the way; as boys they had thirsted for one another’s blood, as men each prayed that misfortune might fall on the other […].”

This suggests that the other family members or loyal followers of the family were not as involved or interested in keeping the feud going. The fight has gone out of proportion, and now the men are willing to spill blood over it. Praying for misfortune to befall the other becomes ironic as the story unfolds as misfortune befalls both of them.

“The roebuck, which usually kept in the sheltered hollows during a storm-wind, were running like driven things tonight, and there was movement and unrest among the creatures that were wont to sleep through the dark hours.”

This sentence evidences the symbolism of disrupted and potentially violent nature. Ulrich does not heed the cues of the animals nor does he give much caution toward the storm. In both a literal and literary sense, these images foreshadow danger.

“The chance had come to give full play to the passions of a lifetime. But a man who has been brought up under the code of restraining civilization cannot easily nerve himself to shoot down his neighbor in cold blood and without word spoken, except for an offense against his hearth and honor.”

Though both men have dreamed of this moment of confronting their enemy and ending the feud with a gun, their more civilized sides cause them to hesitate. Despite their murderous intent, they are both men of society and, at that moment, they give thought to how the rest of society will react if they unleash their hatred without provocation.

“We fight this quarrel out to the death, you and I and our foresters, with no cursed interlopers to come between us. Death and damnation to you, Ulrich von Gradwitz.”

The “restraining civilization” from the previous quotation is dismissed here as Georg relishes a fight to the death putting a bloody end to the feud. The interlopers here are members of civilized society, ones who are not employed by the men, who might prevail upon them to avoid violence. In this first occurrence of the title word, “interlopers” are understood to be those who would impede the men’s efforts to resolve the dispute through violence.

“But what a Heaven-sent draught it seemed!”

The draught refers to the wine in the flask that Ulrich manages to unstop and drink from. This line is somewhat ironic, as the wine is made by humans and Ulrich had the foresight to bring it with him, while the branch that falls on them is an element of nature that could, more accurately, be seen as sent from the heavens.

“[H]e looked across with something like a throb of pity to where his enemy lay, just keeping the groans of pain and weariness from crossing his lips.”

This is the first time Ulrich feels something other than hatred for Georg. Pity is akin to empathy, which shows that Ulrich is starting to view his enemy as a person with similar struggles as his own and a similar reluctance to show pain to an adversary.

“An idea was slowly forming and growing in his brain, an idea that gained strength every time that he looked across at the man who was fighting so grimly against pain and exhaustion. In the pain and languor that Ulrich himself was feeling the old fierce hatred seemed to be dying down.”

The seed of pity Ulrich initially felt grows into empathy. He sees himself in Georg in their current situation. That the hatred built up over many years could die away in minutes indicates that the ongoing dispute does not have a firm basis. It indicates also how, in the story’s moral world, shared suffering is the instrument through which hatred turns, eventually, to affection.

“We have quarrelled like devils all our lives over this stupid strip of forest, where the trees can’t even stand upright in a breath of wind. Lying here tonight, thinking, I’ve come to think we’ve been rather fools; there are better things in life than getting the better of a boundary dispute.”

This is the turning point of the story. Ulrich diminishes what had been his most “jealously guarded possession” to just a “stupid strip of forest.” He has seen the ridiculousness of the feud. The “better things in life,” for him include friendship and peace.

“How the whole region would stare and gabble if we rode into the market-square together.”

Georg imagines the proposed peace between their two families. This quotation reveals that he is also aware of how others in society would see them and react to their new situation. This, as his first response to Ulrich’s peace offering, could suggest that Georg may be motivated by public perception as much as personal values. He seems pleased that he and Ulrich would be the talk of the region.

“And if we choose to make peace among our people there is none other to interfere, no interlopers from outside.”

This second occurrence of the title word changes the meaning from people meddling in violence to people interfering with peace. Georg, too, shows some shortsightedness about the natural world as Ulrich does earlier, as he does not consider how nature might interfere with the peace pact, just as it did when they were about to shoot one another. They jealously protect their independence and autonomy from interlopers, yet in doing so, they put themselves at nature’s mercy. Their insistence on freedom leads to them being pinned to the group—the least free circumstance imaginable.

“And each prayed a private prayer that his men might be the first to arrive, so that he might be the first to show honorable attention to the enemy that had become a friend.”

Their new friendship has turned the hope for their men to arrive first from an opportunity to kill the other to an opportunity to seem more virtuous, or at least be the first to show hospitality to the other. The angry quarrel has now been channeled into a sense of competition, outdoing the other in shows of friendship. Their intense hatred has turned, in a few moments, into an intense desire to outdo the other in shows of friendship.

“The two raised their voices in a prolonged hunting call.”

Never before have the two men done anything together or cooperated. The irony resides in the fact that the one time they work together, giving a call as if they were hunting together, they call down hunters—wolves as predators—upon them.