Claire Bloom: Nancy 'Nan' Perry
Quotes
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Alec Leamas : It was a foul, foul operation, but it paid off.
Nan Perry : Who for?
Alec Leamas : What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not! They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me: little men, drunkards, queers, henpecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong? Yesterday I would have killed Mundt because I thought him evil and an enemy. But not today. Today he is evil and my friend. London needs him. They need him so that the great, moronic masses you admire so much can sleep soundly in their flea-bitten beds again. They need him for the safety of ordinary, crummy people like you and me...
Nan Perry : You killed Fiedler!
Alec Leamas : How big does a cause have to be before you kill your friends? What about your Party? There's a few million bodies on that path!
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Nan Perry : What was my part in all this? I want to know.
Alec Leamas : You were a pawn in the plot. London knew it was no good just killing Fiedler. If he'd been killed, people would've started asking by whom and why. Maybe he'd told friends he suspected Mundt. Maybe he'd left notes, incriminating notes. London had to eliminate suspicion. Public rehabilitation, that's what they organized for Mundt. I was sent to discredit him. He was sent to discredit me.
Nan Perry : And love?
Alec Leamas : We made it very easy for them. They used us. They cheated us both because it was necessary. Fiedler was nearly home already. If it hadn't been for us, Mundt would have been killed. They were bloody clever. All the way down the line they were bloody clever.
Nan Perry : Clever? They were foul! How can you turn the world upside down? What rules are you playing?
Alec Leamas : There's only one rule: expediency. Mundt gives London what it needs, so Fiedler dies and Mundt lives.
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Nan Perry : Well, they returned you to me. I'm so grateful. So grateful! I cut tonight's party meeting.
Alec Leamas : Oh, well, well! Thank you for putting me above history.
