They broke off at last. There were no limits to the subject⁠—but they could not go on forever. The three guests of the Berghof took their way home, and the two disputants had to go into the cottage together, the one to seek his silken cell, the other his humanistic cubbyhole with the pulpit-desk and the water-bottle. Hans Castorp betook himself to his balcony, his ears full of the hurly-burly and the clashing of arms, as the army of Jerusalem and that of Babylon, under the dos banderas , came on in battle array, and met each other midst tumult and shoutings.