Chapter 6, continued Summary

Among the new subjects he has found, Hans Castorp studies botany and astronomy, and begins referring to the zodiac in conversation. Joachim grumpily says Hans has picked up too many grand ideas while lying on his balcony.

One day the cousins see Settembrini with a companion on the mountain path. He pretends not to see them, but when he can't avoid it, introduces them to his companion. Leo Naphta rents rooms in the same building as Settembrini. Naphta is a small, skinny, caustically ugly man with a haughty manner and a high-pitched laugh that sounds like cracked porcelain. The four walk along together, as Settembrini and Naphta trade polite but barbed arguments with learned references that Hans and Joachim can hardly understand. Settembrini mockingly calls Naphta a princeps scholasticorum, and Naphta calls Settembrini a Voltairean. They begin debating whether spirit and...