The display of fireworks for little Chérubin’s baptism put an end to all the festivities at the hôtel de Grandvilain. The marquis succeeded in finding his ear, but it was impossible to put it in place again, so that he was obliged to resign himself to the necessity of closing his career with a single ear, a most disagreeable thing when one has worn two for seventy years.
Aménaïde had conceived a horror of fireworks, rockets, in fact, of the slightest explosion; the most trifling noise made her faint; it went so far that nobody was allowed to uncork a bottle in her presence.
Jasmin continued to wear the aspect of a skimmer, but he soon consoled himself therefor; the old valet had long since laid aside all pretension to please the fair sex; the little holes with which his face was riddled did not interfere with his drinking, and to him that was the principal point.
Mademoiselle Turlurette had received no wound, and yet she deserved better than any of the others to be struck by a saucepan cover at least, for she was the author of all the disasters that had happened in the house. But no one suspected how the thing took place, and Turlurette confined herself to expressing the most profound detestation of fireworks.
And so tranquillity had returned to the hôtel de Grandvilain, where they received many fewer guests since the last festivity; for the young women and the dandies feared to lose their teeth, or to have their noses slit.
The marquis was at liberty to devote all his time to the care of his son, and little Chérubin demanded much care; for he became weak and sickly and sallow, and at three months he was vastly smaller than when he came into the world. Turlurette, who had weighed him at that time, was certain of the fact, and one day she said to Jasmin in an undertone:
“It’s very funny, but madame’s boy is melting away, so that you can see it! He weighs five ounces less to-day than he did the day he was born!”
Jasmin gave a leap when he heard that his master’s child was melting away instead of increasing in size, and he said to Turlurette:
“If this goes on, before long he won’t weigh anything at all. You must tell madame that the little fellow is falling off.”
“Oh, yes! so that madame may torment herself, and so that she won’t be able to feed her son at all. No indeed, I will take pains not to tell her.”