There was a humming sound and a crowd both in the house and around the house that was dreadful to hear and even worse to imagine during the night like that. We sat there until after midnight in the cold and dark and listened to the singing of lost souls and the sad tones dying away towards dawn. We sat there numb to night, frost and cutting wind. We sat there quietly, the Byzantine teacher and I, the old man and the young one and there was no difference in our state of mind. That was the night in which my whole life changed. Through the dirges sung in Saint John's hospice I heard the sweet and childish voice as Saint Augustine once did. From the earliest times onward down to the present horrid time all that I experienced as I lived and breathed went past me and behold, out of great suffering great peace grew. Yes, I am a man and have become serene. The penance that Brother Capistranus demanded of the people of Nuremberg today is not the same as that imposed upon me by God's grace in the days of my youth when we fought for the imperial crown and the imperial crown was returned to us. I have witnessed with patience the barbaric noise of earthly battles, with patience the passing play and change in nature. Nevermore have I grieved when leaves in autumn turned to grey and gold. I take too but a modest pleasure when a new spring tempts forth fresh green grass to decorate the world. I have said goodbye to fear and remained unswerving in my resistance to the things that time has seen fit to torment me with. Time's torments were appalling admittedly. Once more I rode out against the Hussites and saw at Aussig Germans laid low. I came home wounded from this bitter battle and found my friend and good knight Michael Groland of Laufenholz no more in need of things of earth. I encountered his wife in the streets, fine and upstanding in the habit of a nun. She was supporting old Stollhoferin, the leper mother and greeted me quietly. Foolish people made the sign of the cross on account of her strange fate, but the time was at hand when wise people too would envy her peace of mind. Mechthilde Grossin had a great life and eventually succeeded to the title of Mater Leprosorum. She picked up the name like a laurel wreath in the miserable surroundings of Saint John's hospice from the floor thereof and wore it like a crown till she died and there were many who called her the imperial crown herself though that name never got as far as her ears and would have had no meaning for her lofty heart.