Hans Castorp and Joachim were in silent agreement about this talk of Settembrini’s: they found it querulous and seditious in tone, if also highly entertaining and “plastic” in its verbal pungency and animus. Hans Castorp laughed good-humouredly over the “bundle of hay,” likewise over the “beautiful characters”⁠—or, rather, the drolly despairing way Settembrini spoke of them.