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Quite suddenly it felt as if the sun had come down very close to his head. The air filled

with dancing golden specks. Michael's oldest boy came running through the garden

toward where the Don knelt and the boy was enveloped by a yellow shield of blinding

light. But the Don was not to be tricked, he was too old a hand. Death hid behind that

flaming yellow shield ready to pounce out on him and the Don with a wave of his hand

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warned the boy away from his presence. Just in time. The sledgehammer blow inside

his chest made him choke for air. The Don pitched forward into the earth.

The boy raced away to call his father. Michael Corleone and some men at the mall

gate ran to the garden and found the Don lying prone, clutching handfuls of earth. They

lifted the Don up and carried him to the shade of his stone-flagged patio. Michael knelt

beside his father, holding his hand, while the other men called for an ambulance and

doctor.

With a great effort the Don opened his eyes to see his son once more. The massive

heart attack had turned his ruddy face almost blue. He was in extremis. He smelled the

garden, the yellow shield of light smote his eyes, and he whispered, "Life is so

beautiful."

He was spared the sight of his women's tears, dying before they came back from

church, dying before the ambulance arrived, or the doctor. He died surrounded by men,

holding the hand of the son he had most loved.

The funeral was royal. The Five Families sent their Dons and caporegimes, as did the

Tessio and Clemenza Families. Johnny Fontane made the tabloid headlines by

attending the funeral despite the advice of Michael not to appear. Fontane gave a

statement to the newspapers that Vito Corleone was his Godfather and the finest man

he had ever known and that he was honored to be permitted to pay his last respects to

such a man and didn't give a damn who knew it.

The wake was held in the house of the mall, in the old-fashioned style. Amerigo

Bonasera had never done finer work, had discharged all obligations, by preparing his

old friend and Godfather as lovingly as a mother prepares a bride for her wedding.

Everyone commented on how not even death itself had been able to erase the nobility

and the dignity of the great Don's countenance and such remarks made Amerigo

Bonasera fill with knowing pride, a curious sense of power. Only he knew what a terrible

massacre death had perpetrated on the Don's appearance.

All the old friends and servitors came. Nazorine, his wife, his daughter and her

husband and their children, Lucy Mancini came with Freddie from Las Vegas. Tom

Hagen and his wife and children, the Dons from San Francisco and Los Angeles,

Boston and Cleveland. Rocco Lampone and Albert Neri were pallbearers with

Clemenza and Tessio and, of course, the sons of the Don. The mall and all its houses

were filled with floral wreaths.

Outside the gates of the mall were the newspapermen and photographers and a small

truck that was known to contain FBI men with their movie cameras recording this epic.

Some newspapersmen who tried to crash the funeral inside found that the gate and

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fence were manned with security guard who demanded identification and an invitation

card. And though they were treated with the utmost courtesy, refreshment sent out to

them, they were not permitted inside. They tried to speak with some of the people

coming out but were met with stony stares and not a syllable.

Michael Corleone spent most of the day in the corner library room with Kay, Tom

Hagen and Freddie. People were ushered in to see him, to offer their condolences.

Michael received them with all courtesy even when some of them addressed him as

Godfather or Don Michael, only Kay noticing his lips tighten with displeasure.

Clemenza and Tessio came to join this inner circle and Michael personally served

them with a drink. There was some gossip of business. Michael informed them that the

mall and all its houses were to be sold to a development and construction company. At

an enormous profit, still another proof of the great Don's genius.

They all understood that now the whole empire would be in the West. That the

Corleone Family would liquidate its power in New York. Such action had been awaiting

the retirement or death of the Don.

It was nearly ten years since there had been such a celebration of people in this

house, nearly ten years since the wedding of Constanzia Corleone and Carlo Rizzi, so

somebody said. Michael walked to the window that looked out on the garden. That long

time ago he had sat in the garden with Kay never dreaming that so curious a destiny

was to be his. And his father dying had said, "Life is so beautiful." Michael could never

remember his father ever having uttered a word about death, as if the Don respected

death too much to philosophize about it.

It was time for the cemetery. It was time to bury the great Don. Michael linked his arm

with Kay's and went out into the garden to join the host of mourners. Behind him came