Chapter Commentary of The Third Man - Study Guide by Graham Greene

Harry. He is not interested in Martins' claim that Harry was murdered. He knows more than Martins about Harry's racket:

'I'm not interested in whether a racketeer like Lime was killed by his friends or in an accident. The only important thing is that he's dead.... Death's at the bottom of everything, Martins. Leave death to the professionals.' [37]

Not very tactful - indeed, harsh for Martins, harsher still for Anna - but realistic. Anna takes less offence than Martins. She, too, is realistic and knew that Harry was probably mixed up in something nasty. She even admits that her papers are forged. It is Martins who will not accept the reality of the situation. He is very much a lone rider, spurred on by his belief in a rather naïve childhood dream - of the Harry Lime that took him under his wing at school, the Harry Lime who was 'the best friend he ever had'. He is a long way from the reality of post-war Vienna, the desolate bomb shelters; from Harry the racketeer, and - Calloway is right - from the reality of death. Martins follows the second lead: Dr. Winkel. Dr. Winkel is a very stiff, starched, precise man. He is specialist in religious 'objets d'art' - crucifixes, saints' bones, relics, etc. But, at least with Martins or a friend of Harry, he is not false like Kurtz. He admits that the saints' bones are no more than chicken bones. He is also unlike Kurtz in that he is very careful in what he says. In fact, he says almost nothing. He confirms Kurtz's story that there were only two men with Lime when he arrived. He is too cautious to venture any real opinion concerning the time of death or Lime's level of consciousness directly after the accident. All he says is 'maybe - I don't know, I wasn't there'.

This scene gives Martins no information but provides, perhaps an indirect comment on the moral code that Harry and perhaps the others subscribe to. Martins asks him to explain why the Jansenist crucifix depicts Christ with his arms above the head. He replies:

'Because he died, in their view, only for the elect.'[39]

Vienna in this period was not an easy city to survive in. Not only were there the political problems posed by occupation by not one but four powers, but also the usual post-war scarcity of supplies, depressed economy, etc. Everyone, as Kurtz says, is involved in some kind of black market dealing, whether it is cigarettes, tea, tyres, whatever. The kind of racket that Harry and his accomplices run is different. At the bottom of it, as Calloway say, is death. To Jansenists, the non-Jansenists - the 'non- elect' - were as mugs are to racketeers like Harry. This idea is expanded later.

What follows is a scene between Calloway and Anna. Her papers are forged and the Russians have claim to what their officer, Brodsky, refers to as 'the body'. This is but a hint of the political wrangling that goes on between the international military police in Vienna at this time. Greene is rather more explicit in the book. It is not worth explaining here because it is not central to the plot - it was cut from the script, presumably, for that very reason - but it is worth reading in order to understand the background to the plot (see page 99 onwards). Suffice it to say that Russian-Allies relationships were somewhat tense, a conflict in which Anna is embroiled because she is a Russian 'body' living in the British zone.

Back to the plot: Calloway interviews Anna. What his suspicions are is not clear. Perhaps he thought that she was an active member in Harry's racket. He asks her whether she was 'intimate' with Lime, to which she replies that she loved him. Probably more likely, he suspects that she might provide a link to the missing Joseph Harbin. This would give Anna a certain value as a 'body' to Calloway and might explain why she is not immediately turned over to the Russians.

Martins meets Anna as she leaves Calloway's office. They go to the Casanova club. There, Martins bumps into Crabbit who reminds him of the official reason for his visit - his talk on the modern novel. More interestingly, they find Kurtz. He is playing the violin. He is somewhat embarrassed that Anna has seen him in this capacity. He feels it necessary to excuse himself - 'You've found out my little secret. A man must live'.