Friday, May 9, 2014

What are two character traits of two different characters from "The Interlopers"?

Ulrich von Gradwitz and Georg Znaeym are enemies. Their
families have been feuding for years over who should rightly own a strip of forest.
Gradwitz' grandfather gained rightful ownership through the courts years ago, byt Znaeym
will not give up thinking he has rights to the land.


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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, and this wind-scourged winter night Ulrich had banded together his
foresters to watch the dark forest, 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.



From this quote,
you can see that these two men hate each other. Ulrich is literally hunting for Georg
Znaeym. He plans to shoot him when he finds him. Likewise, Georg is planning to shoot
Ulrich. They are planning to find an offence from the other so as to have a reason to
shoot the other one. They run into each other in the dark of night in the
woods:



The
two enemies stood glaring at one another for a long silent moment. Each had a rifle in
his hand, each had hate in his heart and murder uppermost in his mind. 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 a restraining civilization cannot easily nerve himself to shoot down
his neighbour in cold blood and without word spoken, except for an offence against his
hearth and honour.



When
lightning strikes a tree and the tree falls on both men, they are pinned down within
touching distance of each other. They finally communicate and decide to end their
feuding:


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Neighbour," he said presently, "do as you please
if your men come first. It was a fair compact. But as for me, I've changed my mind. If
my men are the first to come you shall be the first to be helped, as though you were my
guest. 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 to-night
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. Neighbour, if you will help me to bury
the old quarrel I - I will ask you to be my
friend.


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