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I never knew the old Vienna before the war, with its Strauss music,
its glamour and easy charm - Constantinople suited me better. I really
got to know it in the classic period of the Black Market. We'd run anything,
if people wanted it enough and had the money to pay - of course, a situation
like that does tend to amateurs but you know they can't stay the course
like a professional. Now the city is devided into four zones, each occupied
by a power - the Americans, the British, the Russians and the French.
But the centre of the city - that's international, policed by an International
Patrol. One member of each of the four powers. What a hope they had, all
strangers to the place and none of them could speak the same language,
except for a sort of smattering of German. Good fellows on the whole,
even if it doesn't look any worse than a lot of other European cities,
bombed about a bit... Oh wait, I was going to tell you about Holly Martins
from America - he came all the way here to visit a friend of his. The
name was Lime, Harry Lime. Now Martins was broke and Lime had offered
him - I don't know - some sort of a job. Anyway, there he was, poor chap,
happy as a lark and without a cent.
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