The Godfather: Chapter 23 Summary & Analysis

The narrative flashes back in time. It has been five months since Michael Corleone fled to Sicily. Being in Sicily helps Michael understand why his family became Mafia criminals. In Sicily, “he saw what they would have been if they had chosen not to struggle against their fate.” Most importantly, Michael learns the importance of omerta, “the law of silence.” Upon arriving in Sicily, Michael settled in the town of Corleone under the protection of the local Mafia chief, Don Tommasino, who owed Don Corleone a service. Michael is staying in the home of Don Tommasino’s elderly uncle, Dr. Taza.

Don Tommasino controls an extensive estate and oversees the estates of the rich, guarding them against claims from the poor. He also dominates water in the region and vetoes any attempt at dam building by the government in Rome. Dr. Taza is fond of both books and prostitutes, and he entertains Michael with stories of the Mafia’s past exploits. Michael learns that the word “Mafia” originally meant “a place of refuge,” and referred to the secret organization that protected Sicilians from centuries of exploitation by outside invaders.

The Mafia established its power through the code of omerta and its role as an organization that protected the poor from the powerful. Over time, however, the Mafia devolved into “the legal arm of the rich” and a “degenerate capitalist structure […] placing its own taxes on every form of business endeavor no matter how small.” Ironically, Michael learns that men like his father turned to crime as the only way to escape the degradation of being under the Mafia’s thumb, for they assumed that an organization similar to it existed in America.

Michael’s facial bones never properly healed after McCluskey’s attack, leaving his left cheek misshapen. Dr. Taza offers to repair it, but Michael refuses because Taza “read everything but his medical literature” and only passed his medical exams “through the good offices” of a Mafia chief. This demonstrates why the Sicilian Mafia is “cancerous to the society it inhabited.” Under Mafia rule, “Merit meant nothing. Talent meant nothing. Work meant nothing. The Mafia Godfather gave you your profession as a gift.” Michael contrasts Sicily’s natural beauty—botanical flowers, sunshine, and Roman architecture—with the ugliness of the Mafia.

Michael is protected by two shepherd bodyguards armed with lupera shotguns. He passes time by reading, taking long walks, and thinking about Kay. The pain in his face grows stronger, which Dr. Taza attributes to a damaged facial nerve (a favorite spot on the body for Mafia torturers). Don Tommasino is dealing with delinquent Mafia thugs in Palermo who view him as a Moustache Pete. One morning, Michael hikes across a field with his bodyguards. The older shepherd is called Calo, the younger, a former sailor with a distinctive tattoo of a man murdering his wife and her lover, is named Fabrizzio.

Despite Sicilians’ relative poverty, their country is “a land of gushing plenty, carpeted with flowers scented by lemon blossoms.” As Michael walks and observes the beauty, his injured face distracts him. The improperly healed bone is pressing on his sinuses, causing his nose to run continually. It is the heaviness in his head, rather than the mucus or the pain, which bothers Michael the most. A group of flower-picking girls near an ancient Roman villa, however, distracts Michael and the shepherds.

One of the girls is so beautiful and catches Michael’s eye so forcefully that Fabrizzio claims he has been “hit by the thunderbolt.” The girl’s oval-shaped eyes, long lashes, and her dark, creamy skin entrance Michael. Unlike his love for Kay, which was fueled in part by her sweetness and her status as his equal partner, Michael’s attraction to the peasant girl is “an overwhelming desire for possession […] and he knew she would haunt his memory every day of his life if he did not possess her.”

Fabrizzio and Calo take Michael to the girl’s village in order to speak with her. They stop to rest at a café porch, where the elderly owner serves them his homemade wine mixed with oranges and lemons. Michael asks the owner if he knows the girl with “creamy skin,” to which the owner curtly replies “no” and vanishes into the café. Fabrizzo learns that the girl they seek is actually the owner’s daughter, and he has threatened to send his burly sons their way if they do not leave. Michael, however, gives the shepherds an icy stare worthy of a “man of respect.”

Michael brings the café owner out to the porch and apologizes to him for disrespecting his daughter. He then identifies himself and asks for permission to meet the girl. “I am an American hiding in Sicily, from the police of my country […] you can inform the police and make your fortune but then your daughter would lose a father rather than gain a husband,” he tells the man. The café owner’s confidence sinks as he asks Michael if he is “a friend of the friends,” meaning the Mafia.

Although Michael denies being a member of the Mafia, the café owner surmises otherwise. He identifies himself as Signor Vitelli and tells Michael to return on Sunday to meet his daughter. Later that evening, Michael reveals to Don Tommasino that he plans to marry the peasant girl with or without the approval of Don Corleone. Don Tommasino knows the Vitelli family and gives Michael his blessing. He also gives the Vitellis his word that Michael is to be treated with respect.

Dr. Taza gives Michael a drug to stop the mucus from running from his nose. On Sunday, Michael visits Signor Vitelli and Signora Vitelli and gives them presents before meeting their daughter, Apollonia. Michael quivers in her presence, and “nothing was going to stop him from owning this girl, possessing her, locking her in a house and keeping her prisoner, only for himself.” He presents her with “a heavy gold chain.” The next day, Michael again meets Apollonia at her father’s café.

Over the next few weeks, Michael and Apollonia court. Michael brings her gifts each day and she becomes less shy. With Don Tommasino ensuring proper safety precautions, the couple soon gets married. Calo and Fabrizzio serve in the wedding party. After the ceremony, the newlyweds settle into Dr. Taza’s fortified villa with Signora Vitelli. When Michael and Apollonia are finally alone in their large bedroom, Michael looks over the bride that he “legally possessed.” They make love to the point where “falling away from each other was like the tremble before death.”

Living with Apollonia instills in Michael a new appreciation for virginity, which gives him “a sensuality mixed with a feeling of masculine power.” Apollonia brings a woman’s touch to Don Tommasino’s villa, and they make many trips into the countryside. The marriage, however, has made Michael’s presence there known to the Corleone Family’s enemies. Necessary precaution restricts the couple inside the villa’s walls, but Michael relishes his days as a newlywed and spends the time teaching Apollonia English and instructing her to drive a car.

One evening, an old Sicilian woman named Filomena visits Michael and asks if he is Don Corleone’s son. She says that the Don once saved her life, and when she learns that Luca Brasi is dead, she curses his soul to “roast in hell for eternity.” She tells Michael the story of when she worked as a midwife in New York City. One night, Luca Brasi called on her to come to his hideout to deliver a baby.

The baby’s father was Brasi, and its mother was an Irish prostitute. After Filomena delivered the child, Brasi instructed her to “take it down to the basement and throw it in the furnace.” Filomena at first refused, but Brasi threatened her with a knife, his face “the gargoyle of the devil” against the furnace’s flames. She murdered the child as instructed, and two days later, Brasi murdered the child’s mother. Terrified for her own life, Filomena went to Don Corleone, who then recruited Brasi to prevent him from going after Filomena. The morning after hearing this story, Michael learns that Sonny is dead.