Английский язык с Крестным Отцом
Шрифт:
Don's protective cordon and put a shot into his chest. The assassin was immediately
riddled with bullets but the damage was done.
However this gave Santino Corleone his chance. With his father out of action, Sonny
took command of a troop, his own regime, with the rank of caporegime, and like a
young, untrumpeted (trumpet [‘trmpit] – труба; to trumpet – трубить, возвещать,
восхвалять) Napoleon, showed a genius for city warfare. He also showed a merciless
ruthlessness, the lack of which had been Don Corleone's only fault as a conqueror.
From 1935 to 1937 Sonny Corleone made a reputation as the most cunning and
relentless executioner the underworld had yet known. Yet for sheer terror even he was
eclipsed by the awesome man named Luca Brasi.
It was Brasi who went after the rest of the Irish gunmen and single-handedly wiped
them out. It was Brasi, operating alone when one of the six powerful families tried to
interfere and become the protector of the independents, who assassinated the head of
the family as a warning. Shortly after, the Don recovered from his wound and made
peace with that particular family.
By 1937 peace and harmony reigned in New York City except for minor incidents,
minor misunderstandings which were, of course, sometimes fatal.
As the rulers of ancient cities always kept an anxious eye on the barbarian tribes
roving around their walls, so Don Corleone kept an eye on the affairs of the world
outside his world. He noted the coming of Hitler, the fall of Spain, Germany's strong-
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arming of Britain at Munich. Unblinkered (незашоренный,
наглазники, шоры) by that outside world, he saw clearly the coming global war and he
understood the implications. His own world would be more impregnable
(непрницаемый, неприступный) than before. Not only that, fortunes could be made in
time of war by alert, foresighted folk. But to do so peace must reign in his domain while
war raged in the world outside.
Don Corleone carried his message through the United States. He conferred with
compatriots in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami,
and Boston. He was the underworld apostle of peace and, by 1939, more successful
than any Pope, he had achieved a working agreement amongst the most powerful
underworld organizations in the country. Like the Constitution of the United States this
agreement respected fully the internal authority of each member in his state or city. The
agreement covered only spheres of influence and an agreement to enforce peace in the
underworld.
And so when World War II broke out in 1939, when the United States joined the
conflict in 1941, the world of Don Vito Corleone was at peace, in order, fully prepared to
reap the golden harvest on equal terms with all the other industries of a booming
America. The Corleone Family had a hand in supplying black-market OPA food stamps,
gasoline stamps, even travel priorities. It could help get war contracts and then help get
black-market materials for those garment center clothing firms who were not given
enough raw material because they did not have government contracts. He could even
get all the young men in his organization, those eligible (могущий
быть избранным['elidGbl]) for Army draft (набор, призыв), 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 (exempt [ig’zempt] –
освобожденный /от чего-либо/) 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 (мазь, /здесь/ мирро /для помазания/) was that
his own son, Michael Corleone, refused to be helped, insisted on volunteering to serve
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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 (snug – плотно лежащий,
прилегающий) 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 (сильный, крепкий, здоровый) bedroom set with two bureaus
and lamps. Also the living room set of heavy stuffed sofa and stuffed armchairs, all