The Interlopers

The story begins with a description of the setting. The narrator calls it “a forest of mixed growth somewhere on the eastern spurs of the Carpathians” (15). Not only does the opening place the tale in a natural setting, but the use of the word somewhere indicates that the specific place is not important. As with many of Saki’s stories, the setting and characters serve as archetypes or perhaps stereotypes. Rather than exploring the natural history of a specific place, or the psychology of a specific person, the story examines and generic type of environment and the type of people who occupy it.

A paragraph later, the narrator confirms this literary approach: “the narrow strip of precipitous woodland that lay on its outskirt was not remarkable for the game it harbored or the shooting it afforded, but it was the most jealously guarded of all its owner’s territorial possessions” (16). It is steep and unremarkable, which highlights the absurdity of the intergenerational feud between the von Gradwitz and Znaeym families. For Ulrich von Gradwitz and Georg Znaeym, now the heads of their respective families, the squabble is less about a specific piece of land and more about abstract ideas of family honor.

The sense of anticipation evident throughout the story also starts in the first sentence. The narrator says, “A man stood one winter night watching and listening, as though he waited” (15). Not only is Ulrich waiting to meet his adversary; he has been waiting his whole life for an opportunity to confront Georg alone and end the frequent poaching. When the meeting does occur, both recognize it, the narrator says, as their “chance […] to give full play to the passions of a lifetime” (17). When nature intervenes in the form of a falling branch, pinning the men beneath it, their waiting and anticipation take a different form. Ulrich and Georg wait nervously, both knowing that it is a matter of chance whose men arrive first. In an ironic reversal typical of Saki’s work, each man’s voluntary waiting to kill the other turns into an involuntary wait to see who will be killed.

Seeing his enemy struggling and in pain, Ulrich has time to contemplate where the feud has gotten them. He allows himself to imagine a future where they are friends and can live in peace. After Georg accepts this offer of friendship, their anticipation reverses again. Both still hope that their men arrive first, but now it is because each man hopes to be “the first to show honorable attention to the enemy that had become a friend” (20). With an exciting new future ahead of them, they call out for help. By doing so, they hasten the arrival of wolves, which will presumably end their waiting and their feud in a different way than they expected. The story takes the men through three stages of anticipation: waiting for each other, waiting for their men to kill the other, and waiting for their men to rescue the other. The men’s plans to, one way or another, protect themselves and advance their interests misdirect them from the event they should be anticipating: their deaths by an animal attack.

Savagery in thought and deed is a frequent component of Saki’s stories. The reader can expect violence or at least the threat of it from that first sentence, where Ulrich stands waiting “for some beast of the woods to come within range of his vision, and, later, of his rifle” (15-16). The author makes it explicit that, despite being the heads of landowning families, Ulrich and Georg have more of the “beast” in them than the “proper gentleman,” saying, “as boys they had thirsted for one another’s blood” (16). When they meet, the narrator continues: “Each had a rifle in his hand, each had hate in his heart and murder uppermost in his mind” (17). It is only the thin veneer of civilized society that restrains them from killing one another immediately. Their accident gives them time to cool those violent impulses and see the dispute as foolish. It is then, however, that Saki provides his ultimate twist when wolves, actual “savage beasts,” arrive. Through the stormy weather and the wolves, the author shows the violence of nature. However, the story suggests that this type of violence is uncontrollable and inevitable, whereas the violence of these men (and humanity in general) can and perhaps should be controlled.

The word “interlopers” appears twice in the story and initially refers to people who might prevent them from attempting their murderous plans. In a sense, the branch of the tree also acts as an interloper, as it prevents the men from fighting. The second occurrence of the word is to label people who might intervene in their proposed plans of peace and friendship. Ulrich and Georg have such stature in their community that they are confident of success should they choose peace. Soon, however, a different kind of interloper appears: a pack of wolves. The reader may assume that in the battle of Humans Versus Nature, in this instance at least, nature will prevail. After their haughty concern about interlopers in their affairs, Ulrich and Georg find that their understanding of interlopers has been one-sided. As privileged landowners, they were thinking only about other people interfering in their affairs. They did not consider that they might be interfering in the affairs of other people (or, in this case, animals). In the end, Ulrich and Georg are interlopers in the wolves’ forest, and they will presumably pay the price of transgression.