In Saki's "The Interlopers," more than land ownership at stake
is the pride of each of the feuding sides in their enmity over the "most jealously guarded of
all...territorial possessions." For this "neighbor feud" has grown into that of a personal one
that has been handed down to Ulrich von Gradwitz since he has become the head of his
family.
Even when Ulrich and his archenemy George Znaeym are trapped
beneath the branches of beech tree struck by the violence of the storm, they cling to this pride
in their feud, boasting each that their men will be the first to arrive and deal with their
enemy:
"So your're not
killed, as you ought to be, but you're caught, anyway," he cried; "caught fast. Ho, what a jest,
Ulrich von Gradwitz snared in his stolen forest. There's real justice for
you!""I'm caught in my own forest-land," retorted Ulrich. "When my
men come to release us you will wish, perhaps, that you were in a better plight than caught
poaching on a neighbor's land, shame on
you."
As the men lie pinned beneath
the tree, there is a "bitterness of possible defeat" that courses through each of them until they
finally realize that more is at stake than their prides: other interlopers come--wolves--and now
their very lives are at stake.
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