The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
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enough raw material because they did not have government contracts. He could even 
get all the young men in his organization, those eligible for Army draft, excused from 
fighting in the foreign war. He did this with the aid of doctors. who advised what drugs 
had to be taken before physical examination, or by placing the men in draft-exempt 
positions in the war industries. 
And so the Don could take pride in his rule. His world was safe for those who had sworn 
loyalty to him; other men who believed in law and order were dying by the millions. The 
only fly in the ointment was that his own son, Michael Corleone, refused to be helped, 
insisted on volunteering to serve his own country. And to the Don’s astonishment, so did 
a few of his other young men in the organization. One of the men, trying to explain this 
to his caporegime, said, “This country has been good to me.” Upon this story being 
relayed to the Don he said angrily to the caporegime, “I have been good to him.” It might 
have gone badly for these people but, as he had excused his son Michael, so must he 
excuse other young men who so misunderstood their duty to their Don and to 
themselves. 
At the end of World War II Don Corleone knew that again his world would have to 
change its ways, that it would have to fit itself more snugly into the ways of the other, 
larger world. He believed he could do this with no loss of profit. 
There was reason for this belief in his own experience. What had put him on the right 
track were two personal affairs. Early in his career the then-young Nazorine, only a 
baker’s helper planning to get married, had come to him for assistance. He and his 
future bride, a good Italian girl, had saved their money and had paid the enormous sum 
of three hundred dollars to a wholesaler of furniture recommended to them. This 
wholesaler had let them pick out everything they wanted to furnish their tenement 
apartment. A fine sturdy bedroom set with two bureaus and lamps. Also the living room 
set of heavy stuffed sofa and stuffed armchairs, all covered with rich gold-threaded 
fabric. Nazorine and his fiancee had spent a happy day picking out what they wanted 
from the huge warehouse crowded with furniture. The wholesaler took their money, their 
three hundred dollars wrung from the sweat of their blood, and pocketed it and promised 
the furniture to be delivered within the week to the already rented flat. 
The very next week however, the firm had gone into bankruptcy. The great warehouse 
stocked with furniture had been sealed shut and attached for payment of creditors. The 
wholesaler had disappeared to give other creditors time to unleash their anger on the 
empty air. Nazorine, one of these, went to his lawyer, who told him nothing could be 

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