Английский язык с Крестным Отцом
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anyway. They have no respect for their wives or their families or for themselves. Let
them lose their souls with drugs. But something has to be done, we just can't let people
do as they please and make trouble for everyone."
This speech of the Detroit Don was received with loud murmurs of approval. He had
hit the nail on the head. You couldn't even pay people to stay out of the drug traffic. As
for his remarks about children, that was his well-known sensibility, his
tenderheartedness speaking. After all, who would sell drugs to children? Where would
children get the money? As for his remarks about the coloreds, that was not even heard.
The Negroes were considered of absolutely no account, of no force whatsoever. That
they had allowed society to grind them into the dust proved them of no account and his
mentioning them in any way proved that the Don of Detroit had a mind that always
wavered (to waver –
(irrelevance – неуместность [i'relivns]).
All the Dons spoke. All of them deplored the traffic in drugs as a bad thing that would
cause trouble but agreed there was no way to control it. There was, simply, too much
money to be made in the business, therefore it followed that there would be men who
would dare anything to dabble (плескаться, барахтаться; заниматься чем-либо
поверхностно) in it. That was human nature.
It was finally agreed. Drug traffic would be permitted and Don Corleone must give it
some legal protection in the East. It was understood that the Barzini and Tattaglia
Families would do most of the large-scale operations. With this out of the way the
conference was able to move on to other matters of a wider interest. There were many
complex problems to be solved. It was agreed that Las Vegas and Miami were to be
open cities where any of the Families could operate. They all recognized that these
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were the cities of the future. It was also agreed that no violence would be permitted in
these cities and that petty (мелкий, незначительный) criminals of all types were to be
discouraged. It was agreed that in momentous affairs, in executions that were
necessary but might cause too much of a public outcry, the execution must be approved
by this council. It was agreed that button men and other soldiers were to be restrained
from violent crimes and acts of vengeance against each other on personal matters. It
was agreed that Families would do each other services when requested, such as
providing executioners, technical assistance in pursuing certain courses of action such
as bribing jurors (juror ['dGur] –
These discussions, informal, colloquial and on a high level, took time and were broken
by lunch and drinks from the buffet bar.
Finally Don Barzini sought to bring the meeting to an end. "That's the whole matter
then," he said. "We have the peace and let me pay my respects to Don Corleone, whom
we all have known over the years as a man of his word. If there are any more
differences we can meet again, we need not become foolish again. On my part the road
is new and fresh. I'm glad this is all settled."
Only Phillip Tattaglia was a little worried still. The murder of Santino Corleone made
him the most vulnerable person in this group if war broke out again. He spoke at length
for the first time.
"I've agreed to everything here, I'm willing to forget my own misfortune. But I would
like to hear some strict assurances from Corleone. Will he attempt any individual
vengeance? When time goes by and his position perhaps becomes stronger, will he
forget that we have sworn our friendship? How am I to know that in three or four years
he won't feel that he's been ill served, forced against his will to this agreement and so
free to break it? Will we have to guard against each other all the time? Or can we truly
go in peace with peace of mind? Would Corleone give us all his assurances as I now
give mine?"
It was then that Don Corleone gave the speech that would be long remembered, and
that reaffirmed his position as the most far-seeing statesman among them, so full of
common sense, so direct from the heart; and to the heart of the matter. In it he coined a
phrase that was to become as famous in its way as Churchill's Iron Curtain, though not
public knowledge until more than ten years later.
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For the first time he stood up to address the council. He was short and a little thin from
his "illness," perhaps his sixty years showed a bit more but there was no question that
he had regained all his former strength, and had all his wits.
"What manner of men are we then, if we do not have our reason," he said. "We are all
no better than beasts in a jungle if that were the case. But we have reason, we can
reason with each other and we can reason with ourselves. To what purpose would I
start all these troubles again, the violence and the turmoil? My son is dead and that is a