The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
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stopping to talk with a guest here and there as he worked his way through the crowd. 
All eyes followed them. The maid of honor, thoroughly Americanized by three years of 
college, was a ripe girl who already had a “reputation.” All through the marriage 
rehearsals she had flirted with Sonny Corleone in a teasing, joking way she thought was 
permitted because he was the best man and her wedding partner. Now holding her pink 
gown up off the ground, Lucy Mancini went into the house, smiling with false innocence; 
ran lightly up the stairs to the bathroom. She stayed there for a few moments. When she 
came out Sonny Corleone was on the landing above, beckoning her upward. 
From behind the closed window of Don Corleone’s “office,” a slightly raised corner room, 
Thomas Hagen watched the wedding party in the festooned garden. The walls behind 
him were stacked with law books. Hagen was the Don’s lawyer and acting Consigliere, 
or counselor, and as such held the most vital subordinate position in the family 
business. He and the Don had solved many a knotty problem in this room, and so when 
he saw the Godfather leave the festivities and enter the house, he knew, wedding or no, 
there would be a little work this day. The Don would be coming to see him. Then Hagen 
saw Sonny Corleone whisper in Lucy Mancini’s ear and their little comedy as he 
followed her into the house. Hagen grimaced, debated whether to inform the Don, and 
decided against it. He went to the desk and picked up a handwritten list of the people 
who had been granted permission to see Don Corleone privately. When the Don 
entered the room, Hagen handed him the list. Don Corleone nodded and said, “Leave 
Bonasera to the end.” 
Hagen used the French doors and went directly out into the garden to where the 
supplicants clustered around the barrel of wine. He pointed to the baker, the pudgy 
Nazorine. 
Don Corleone greeted the baker with an embrace. They had played together as children 
in Italy and had grown up in friendship. Every Easter freshly baked clotted-cheese and 
wheat-germ pies, their crusts yolk-gold, big around as truck wheels, arrived at Don 
Corleone’s home. On Christmas, on family birthdays, rich creamy pastries proclaimed 
the Nazorines’ respect. And all through the years, lean and fat, Nazorine cheerfully paid 
his dues to the bakery union organized by the Don in his salad days. Never asking for a 
favor in return except for the chance to buy black-market OPA sugar coupons during the 
war. Now the time had come for the baker to claim his rights as a loyal friend, and Don 
Corleone looked forward with great pleasure to granting his request. 

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