The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
177
fellow. Once I explain how things are with you he’ll take pity on your misfortunes. Now 
don’t let it trouble you any more. Don’t get so upset. Guard your health, for the sake of 
your children.” 
* * *
The landlord, Mr. Roberto, came to the neighborhood every day to check on the row of 
five tenements that he owned. He was a padrone, a man who sold Italian laborers just 
off the boat to the big corporations. With his profits he had bought the tenements one by 
one. An educated man from the North of Italy, he felt only contempt for these illiterate 
Southerners from Sicily and Naples, who swarmed like vermin through his buildings, 
who threw garbage down the air shafts, who let cockroaches and rats eat away his walls 
without lifting a hand to preserve his property. He was not a bad man, he was a good 
husband and father, but constant worry about his investments, about the money he 
earned, about the inevitable expenses that came with being a man of property had worn 
his nerves to a frazzle so that he was in a constant state of irritation. When Vito 
Corleone stopped him on the street to ask for a word, Mr. Roberto was brusque. Not 
rude, since any one of these Southerners might stick a knife into you if rubbed the 
wrong way, though this young man looked like a quiet fellow. 
“Signor Roberto,” said Vito Corleone, “the friend of my wife, a poor widow with no man 
to protect her, tells me that for some reason she has been ordered to move from her 
apartment in your building. She is in despair. She has no money, she has no friends 
except those that live here. I told her that I would speak to you, that you are a 
reasonable man who acted out of some misunderstanding. She has gotten rid of the 
animal that caused all the trouble and so why shouldn’t she stay? As one Italian to 
another, I ask you the favor.” 
Signor Roberto studied the young man in front of him. He saw a man of medium stature 
but strongly built, a peasant but not a bandit, though he so laughably dared to call 
himself an Italian. Roberto shrugged. “I have already rented the apartment to another 
family for higher rent,” he said. “I cannot disappoint them for the sake of your friend.” 
Vito Corleone nodded in agreeable understanding. “How much more a month?” he 
asked. 
“Five dollars,” Mr. Roberto said. This was a lie. The railway flat, four dark rooms, rented 
for twelve dollars a month to the widow and he had not been able to get more than that 
from the new tenant. 

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