The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
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understanding which was even then building the legend of his greatness, showed the 
young man the first mark of fatherly affection since he hadcome into his household. He 
took Hagen into his arms for a quick embrace and afterward treated him more like a true 
son, though he would sometimes say, “Tom, never forget your parents,” as if he were 
reminding himself as well as Hagen. 
There was no chance that Hagen would forget. His mother had been near moronic and 
slovenly, so ridden by anemia she could not feel affection for her children or make a 
pretense of it. His father Hagen had hated. His mother’s blindness before she died had 
terrified him and his own eye infection had been a stroke of doom. He had been sure he 
would go blind. When his father died, Tom Hagen’s eleven-year-old mind had snapped 
in a curious way. He had roamed the streets like an animal waiting for death until the 
fateful day Sonny found him sleeping in the back of a hallway and brought him to his 
home. What had happened afterward was a miracle. But for years Hagen had had 
nightmares, dreaming he had grown to manhood blind, tapping a white cane, his blind 
children behind him tap-tapping with their little white canes as they begged in the 
streets. Some mornings when he woke the face of Don Corleone was imprinted on his 
brain in that first conscious moment and he would feel safe. 
But the Don had insisted that he put in three years of general law practice in addition to 
his duties for the family business. This experience had proved invaluable later on, and 
also removed any doubts in Hagen’s mind about working for Don Corleone. He had then 
spent two years of training in the offices of a top firm of criminal lawyers in which the 
Don had some influence. It was apparent to everyone that he had a flair for this branch 
of the law. He did well and when he went into the full-time service of the family business, 
Don Corleone had not been able to reproach him once in the six years that followed. 
When he had been made the acting Consigliere, the other powerful Sicilian families 
referred contemptuously to the Corleone family as the “Irish gang.” This had amused 
Hagen. It had also taught him that he could never hope to succeed the Don as the head 
of the family business. But he was content. That had never been his goal, such an 
ambition would have been a “disrespect” to his benefactor and his benefactor’s blood 
family. 
* * *
It was still dark when the plane landed in Los Angeles. Hagen checked into his hotel, 
showered and shaved, and watched dawn come over the city. He ordered breakfast and 

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