Bettina twists her handkerchief round her hand, takes her great umbrella, turns the key in the lock; and opens the door.
At last she is out of the house! The weather is frightful.

The wind and the rain rage together.

It takes five or six minutes to reach the terrace which looks over the road.
Bettina darts forward courageously; her head bent, hidden under her immense umbrella, she has taken a few steps.

All at once, furious, mad, blinding, a sudden squall bursts upon Bettina, buries her in her mantle, drives her along, lifts her almost from the ground, turns the umbrella violently inside out; that is nothing, the disaster is not yet complete.
Bettina has lost one of her little sabots; they were not practical sabots; they were only pretty little things for fine weather, and at this moment, when Bettina struggles against the tempest with her blue satin shoe half buried in the wet gravel, at this moment the wind bears to her the distant echo of a blast of trumpets.

It is the regiment starting! Bettina makes a desperate effort, abandons her umbrella, finds her little sabot, fastens it on as well as she can, and starts off running, with a deluge descending on her head.
At last, she is in the wood, the trees protect her a little.