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Hans Castorp

This character represents one side of the German soul, the Everyman of his time and place: hard-working, conscientious, middle-class and ordinary on the outside but full of secret longings and unexpected attractions and talents.

Lodovico Settembrini

This character is a poor but elegant Italian humanist and Berghof patient.

Clavdia Chauchat

This character is a twenty-some year old Russian patient whose seemingly glamorous impulses lead to a job as the nursemaid to a sick, impotent, rich, old man.

Leo Naphta

This character is the son of a Jewish ritual butcher who converts to Catholicism after his father's death.

Joachim Ziemssen

This character's only desire is to be a soldier in the flatlands.

Hofrat Behrens

This character is the Director of the International Sanatorium.

Dr. Krokowski

This short, stocky character conducts psychoanalysis sessions on patients and offers regular Sunday lectures on the relationship between love and death.

The Narrator

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