In “The Interlopers,” we know for certain that Ulrich von Gradwitz has come out into the forest on this stormy night because he hates Georg Znaeym. We are not specifically told why Znaeym has come out, but we can infer that it is for the same reason. We are also not explicitly told what happens to the two men, but it certainly seems likely that they are killed just after the story ends.
Ulrich and...
In “The Interlopers,” we know for certain that Ulrich von Gradwitz has come out into the forest on this stormy night because he hates Georg Znaeym. We are not specifically told why Znaeym has come out, but we can infer that it is for the same reason. We are also not explicitly told what happens to the two men, but it certainly seems likely that they are killed just after the story ends.
Ulrich and Georg hate each other personally, and they hate each other because their families have been in conflict for generations. The two families have a dispute about who owns the stretch of forest in which the story takes place. The author explicitly tells us that Ulrich has come out because he thinks Georg will be (as he sees it) trespassing and poaching on his land that evening. As the story says, Ulrich and his foresters had come out
not in quest of four-footed quarry, but to keep a look-out for the prowling thieves whom he suspected of being afoot from across the land boundary.
In other words, Ulrich was out on this night because he hated Georg and wanted to catch Georg on the disputed land. When he caught Georg, he hoped to kill him. We are not told why Georg is out, but we can assume it is for a similar reason.
As for what happens to the men, we do not know for sure. We know that they are trapped under a huge beech tree that blows down in the windstorm. We know that they agree to end their feud. We know that, at the end of the story, Ulrich believes that he sees nine or ten wolves coming towards them. From this, we can infer that the two men die, killed by the wolves.
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