The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
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conscience was never troubled by the two men he had murdered; Sollozzo had tried to 
kill his father, Captain McCluskey had disfigured him for life. 
Dr. Taza always kept after him about getting surgery done for his lopsided face, 
especially when Michael asked him for pain-killing drugs, the pain getting worse as time 
went on, and more frequent. Taza explained that there was a facial nerve below the eye 
from which radiated a whole complex of nerves. Indeed, this was the favorite spot for 
Mafia torturers, who searched it out on the cheeks of their victims with the needle-fine 
point of an ice pick. That particular nerve in Michael’s fee had been injured or perhaps 
there was a splinter of bone lanced into it. Simple surgery in a Palermo hospital would 
permanently relieve the pain. 
Michael refused. When the doctor asked why, Michael grinned and said, “It’s something 
from home.” 
And he really didn’t mind the pain, which was more an ache, a small throbbing in his 
skull, like a motored apparatus running in liquid to purify it. 
It was nearly seven months of leisurely rustic living before Michael felt real boredom. At 
about this time Don Tommasino became very busy and was seldom seen at the villa. He 
was having his troubles with the “new Mafia” springing up in Palermo, young men who 
were making a fortune out of the postwar construction boom in that city. With this wealth 
they were trying to encroach on the country fiefs of oldtime Mafia leaders whom they 
contemptuously labeled Moustache Petes. Don Tommasino was kept busy defending 
his domain. And so Michael was deprived of the old man’s company and had to be 
content with Dr. Taza’s stories, which were beginning to repeat themselves. 
One morning Michael decided to take a long hike to the mountains beyond Corleone. He 
was, naturally, accompanied by the two shepherd bodyguards. This was not really a 
protection against enemies of the Corleone Family. It was simply too dangerous for 
anyone not a native to go wandering about by himself. It was dangerous enough for a 
native. The region was loaded with bandits, with Mafia partisans fighting against each 
other and endangering everybody else in the process. He might also be mistaken for a 
pagliaio thief. 
A pagliaio is a straw-thatched but erected in the fields to house farming tools and to 
provide shelter for the agricultural laborers so that they will not have to carry them on 
the long walk from their homes in the village. In Sicily the peasant does not live on the 
land he cultivates. It is too dangerous and any arable land, if he owns it, is too precious. 

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