Английский язык с Крестным Отцом

At the age of eleven he had been a playmate of eleven-year-old Sonny Corleone. Hagen's mother had gone blind and then died during his eleventh year. Hagen's father, a heavy drinker, had become a hopeless drunkard. A hard-working carpenter, he had never done a dishonest thing in his life. But his drinking destroyed his family and finally killed him. Tom Hagen was left an orphan who wandered the streets and slept in hallways. His younger sister had been put in a foster home, but in the 1920's the social agencies did not follow up cases of twelve-year-old boys who were so ungrateful as to run from their charity. Hagen, too, had an eye infection. Neighbors whispered that he had caught or inherited it from his mother and so therefore it could be caught from him. He was shunned. Sonny Corleone, a warmhearted and imperious eleven-year-old, had brought his friend home and demanded that he be taken in. Tom Hagen was given a hot dish of spaghetti with oily rich tomato sauce, the taste of which he had never forgotten, and then given a metal folding bed to sleep on.

In the most natural way, without a word being spoken or the matter discussed in any fashion, Don Corleone had permitted the boy to stay in his household. Don Corleone himself took the boy to a special doctor and had his eye infection cured. He sent him to college and law school. In all this the Don acted not as a father but rather as a guardian. There was no show of affection but oddly enough the Don treated Hagen more courteously than his own sons, did not impose a parental will upon him. It was the boy's decision to go to law school after college. He had heard Don Corleone say once, "A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns." Meanwhile, much to the annoyance of their father, Sonny and Freddie insisted on going into the family business after graduation from high school. Only Michael had gone on to college, and he had enlisted in the Marines the day after Pearl Harbor.

After he passed the bar exam, Hagen married to start his own family. The bride was a young Italian girl from New Jersey, rare at that time for being a college graduate (была редкостью в то время, будучи выпускницей колледжа). After the wedding, which was of course held in the home of Don Corleone (которая, конечно, состоялась: «была проведена» в доме Дона), the Don offered to support Hagen in any undertaking he desired (поддержать Хагена в любом предприятии, какое он пожелает; to support [s∂’po:t]), to send him law clients, furnish his office (оборудовать, обставить мебелью его офис), start him in real estate (помочь ему с недвижимостью; real estate – недвижимость).

Tom Hagen had bowed his head and said to the Don, "I would like to work for you."

The Don was surprised, yet pleased. "You know who I am?" he asked.

Hagen nodded. He hadn't really known the extent of the Don's power (размер его власти, насколько далеко простиралась его власть; extent [ıks’tent] – протяженность), not then (тогда еще нет). He did not really know in the ten years that followed until he was made the acting Consigliori after Genco Abbandando became ill. But he nodded and met the Don's eyes with his own. "I would work for you like your sons," Hagen said, meaning with complete loyalty, with complete acceptance of the Don's parental divinity (с полным принятием «родительской божественности Дона» = относясь к нему с благоговением, как к Богу). The Don, with that understanding which was even then building the legend of his greatness (с тем пониманием /сути дела/, которое уже тогда создавало легенду его величия), showed the young man the first mark (знак) of fatherly affection since he had come into his household. He took Hagen into his arms for a quick embrace (для быстрого = недолгого объятия) 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 (как будто напоминая самому себе, также как и Хагену = а не только Хагену).