Spiegel monologue (Act 2) — The Robbers

Ay, sure! body and soul. But I must tell you a bit of fun, my boy, which I had the other day in the nunnery of St. Austin. We fell in with the convent just about sunset; and as I had not fired a single cartridge all day,--you know I hate the _diem perdidi_ as I hate death itself,--I was determined to immortalize the night by some glorious exploit, even though it should cost the devil one of his ears! We kept quite quiet till late in the night. At last all is as still as a mouse --the lights are extinguished. We fancy the nuns must be comfortably tucked up. So I take brother Grimm along with me, and order the others to wait at the gate till they hear my whistle--I secure the watchman, take the keys from him, creep into the maid-servants' dormitory, take. away all their clothes, and whisk the bundle out at the window. We go on from cell to cell, take away the clothes of one sister after another, and lastly those of the lady-abbess herself. Then I sound my whistle, and my fellows outside begin to storm and halloo as if doomsday was at hand, and away they rush with the devil's own uproar into the cells of the sisters! Ha, ha, ha! You should have seen the game--how the poor creatures were groping about in the dark for their petticoats, and how they took on when they found they were gone; and we, in the meantime, at 'em like very devils; and now, terrified and amazed, they wriggled under their bedclothes, or cowered together like cats behind the stoves. There was such shrieking and lamentation; and then the old beldame of an abbess--you know, brother, there is nothing in the world I hate so much as a spider and an old woman--so you may just fancy that wrinkled old hag standing naked before me, conjuring me by her maiden modesty forsooth! Well, I was determined to make short work of it; either, said I, out with your plate and your convent jewels and all your shining dollars, or--my fellows knew what I meant. The end of it was I brought away more than a thousand dollars' worth out of the convent, to say nothing of the fun, which will tell its own story in due time.