The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
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nose. He blew into it and then wiped. “There’s the best reason for not marrying me,” he 
said. “How would that be having a guy around who always has to blow his nose?” 
Kay said impatiently, “Come on, be serious, I asked you a question.” 
Michael held the handkerchief in his hand. “OK,” he said, “this one time. You are the 
only person I felt any affection for, that I care about. I didn’t call you because it never 
occurred to me that you’d still be interested in me after everything that’s happened. 
Sure, I could have chased you, I could have conned you, but I didn’t want to do that. 
Now here’s something I’ll trust you with and I don’t want you to repeat it even to your 
father. If everything goes right, the Corleone Family will be completely legitimate in 
about five years. Some very tricky things have to be done to make that possible. That’s 
when you may become a wealthy widow. Now what do I want you for? Well, because I 
want you and I want a family. I want kids; it’s time. And I don’t want those kids to be 
influenced by me the way I was influenced by my father. I don’t mean my father 
deliberately influenced me. He never did. He never even wanted me in the family 
business. He wanted me to become a professor or a doctor, something like that. But 
things went bad and I had to fight for my Family. I had to fight because l love and admire 
my father. I never knew a man more worthy of respect. He was a good husband and a 
good father and a good friend to people who were not so fortunate in life. There’s 
another side to him, but that’s not relevant to me as his son. Anyway I don’t want that to 
happen to our kids. I want them to be influenced by you. I want them to grow up to be 
All-American kids, real All-American, the whole works. Maybe they or their grandchildren 
will go into politics.” Michael grinned. “Maybe one of them will be President of the United 
States. Why the hell not? In my history course at Dartmouth we did some background 
on all the Presidents and they had fathers and grandfathers who were lucky they didn’t 
get hanged. But I’ll settle for my kids being doctors or musicians or teachers. They’ll 
never be in the Family business. By the time they are that old I’ll be retired anyway. And 
you and I will be part of some country club crowd, the good simple life of well-to-do 
Americans. How dote that strike you for a proposition?” 
“Marvelous,” Kay said. “But you sort of skipped ones the widow part.” 
“There’s not much chance of that. I just mentioned it to give a fair presentation.” Michael 
patted his nose with the handkerchief. 
“I can’t believe it, I can’t believe you’re a man like that, you’re just not,” Kay said. Her 
face had a bewildered look. “I just don’t understand the whole thing, how it could 

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