social functions dominated my mind to such an extent that I wrote a
little fairy tale about boredom, by no means bad (but unfortunately
lost), round an idea which I saw several years later treated in another
way in Sibbern's well-known book of the year 2135. This fairy tale was
read aloud to Nutzhorn's band and met with its approval.

But although I could thus by no means be called of a happy disposition,
I was, by reason of my overflowing youth, in a constant state of
elation, which, as soon as the company of others brought me out of my
usual balance, acted like exuberant mirth and made me burst out
laughing.

I was noted, among my comrades, and not always to my advantage, for my
absolutely ungovernable risibility. I had an exceedingly keen eye for
the ridiculous, and easily influenced as I still was, I could not
content myself with a smile. Not infrequently, when walking about the
town, I used to laugh the whole length of a street. There were times
when I was quite incapable of controlling my laughter; I laughed like a
child, and it was incomprehensible to me that people could go so soberly
and solemnly about. If a person stared straight at me, it made me laugh.
If a girl flirted a little with me, I laughed in her face. One day I
went out and saw two drunken labourers, in a cab, each with a wreath on
his knee; I was obliged to laugh; I met an old dandy whom I knew, with
two coats on, one of which hung down below the other; I had to laugh at
that, too. Sometimes, walking or standing, absorbed in thoughts, I was
outwardly abstracted, and answered mechanically, or spoke in a manner
unsuited to my words; if I noticed this myself, I could not refrain from
laughing aloud at my own absent-mindedness. It occasionally happened
that at an evening party, where I had been introduced by the son of the
house to a stiff family to whom I was a stranger, and where the