Ulrich von Gradwitz patrolled the dark forest in quest of a human enemy.
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 game it harboured or the shooting it afforded, but it was the most jealously guarded of all its owner's territorial possessions. A famous law suit, in the days of his grandfather, had wrested it from the illegal possession of a neighbouring family of petty landowners; the dispossessed party had never acquiesced in the judgment of the Courts, and a long series of poaching affrays and similar scandals had embittered the relationships between the families for three generations. The neighbour 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. 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.
The roebuck, which usually kept in the sheltered hollows during a storm-wind, were running like driven things to-night, and there was movement and unrest among the creatures that were wont to sleep through the dark hours. Assuredly there was a disturbing How does the second paragraph add suspense to the situation described in the first paragraph?
(1 point)
It demonstrates that Ulrich is in a
• position of power from which he appears likely to fall.
It suggests that something monstrous is lurking in the forest, waiting to ambush the unwitting hunter.
It pauses in describing the current action to add background information that heightens the tension of the conflict.
It makes the reader dislike Ulrich
• and hope that something bad will happen to him in the forest.
1 answer
The correct answer is: It pauses in describing the current action to add background information that heightens the tension of the conflict.
This choice reflects how the second paragraph provides crucial background about the feud between Ulrich and Georg, thereby enhancing the suspense by indicating that the stakes are not just personal but tied to a long-standing conflict. This context creates a sense of impending confrontation that heightens the tension of the situation.
