- [first lines]
- Roald Dahl: There is a place, far up in the north of Russia, called Kropkinsk, where, in the winter, the earth freezes so hard it is impossible to dig a grave when a man dies. So the clever Russians, do you know what they do? They simply sharpen his legs and knock him into the ground with a sledgehammer. This has absolutely nothing to do with what you're going to see now, except that we also have a Russian in our story -- a Russian painter called Soutine, who went to live in France where he died in poverty in 1943. I didn't invent Soutine. He was real. He was a very great painter. And today, his pictures fetch enormous sums all over the world.
- Self - Introduced by: Shortly after that a Soutine of an unusual nature turned up for sale in Buenos Aires. That, and the fact that there is no Hotel Bristol at Cannes, causes one to wonder.