Good Neighbours
[Marthe Lacroix is a ragpicker with a tendency toward passive-aggressive behavior. She has hazel eyes and tangled red hair; the most obvious thing about her is her clubfoot. She is a neighbor of Bahorel. --Anti-Marie-Suzette Generator.]
Bahorel yawned and stuck his ruffled head out the door, groaning loudly at the stink and the cold air.
"Marthe! God's blood, you lazy shiftless good-for-nothing freeloader! What in hell are you doing outside my house at this hour? You smell like the sewers and you look like something that should have been thrown out years ago!"
Marthe Lacrois stuck out her lip unhappily and peered blearily up at him with wandering hazel eyes that searched desperately for his face.
"But--but, sir, I ain't go nowhere to stay, and you knows it, sir. I been out all night lookin' for something to put in me bag, on account of I'm dreffle 'ungry, and here's you comin' and callin' and insultin' at me. Ain't I right sorry? I only lives in the rubbish nexdor, I'm sure, but I's got nowhere else to go, sir, and the cold's dreffle bad. Only I knows you don't mean it, do you, sir? I was just thinkin' about how glad I was you'd be up and about soon, sir, 'cause I knew you'd be thinkin' o' me and just about ready to give me a bite to eat, and I was ever so glad 'cause I knew about yer kind heart aforehand, bless you, sir."
"Oh, Marthe, Marthe," said Bahorel, sighing and shaking his head. "You wicked, wicked woman. Sitting there and talking pitifully to me when you know I've got a heart susceptible to you."
She sniffled and pulled in anguish at her tangled red hair, as if to show him how desperate she was. As she rocked and shifted, her rags rocked and shifted, too, and the clubfoot she staggered around on most of the night and day looking for discarded bits of cloth showed ugly and crumpled beneath her. Bahorel curled his lip in disgust and leaned on the doorframe.
"But why should I be good to you, I'd like to know? You're always there, revolting creature, begging me; and me so pitying and gentle."
"Dreffle 'ungry, sir, and just thinkin' about what a kind-hearted feller you was. I'm just that grateful to you already, 'cause I know what you're gonna do, you good man."
"I do hate you, Marthe. Why don't you move?" he asked, ducking back inside to fetch the remainder of last night's bread.
Marthe grabbed it eagerly and smiled at him hideously, making snarfling noises as she ate. "Oh, sir, poor li'l me just couldn't think ter move, sir, when I got someone as kind as you is, sir, for a neighbour. I'm ever so grateful for all you do for me, I am, and when I think about how I kin depend on you and you'd never be so cruel as to turn me away nor nothing--"
"Yes, yes, all right. Go to hell."
She snarfled the rest of the bread and grinned at the door that had just been slammed in her face.
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