Dear Alexey
thanks very much. The Gorky on Anatole France is exactly what the source I
was looking for.
I still need to find out if it actually was Lenin who turned Gorky's comment
into a maxim.
Godard's character Bruno Forestier in Le petit soldat (1960) says:
"There's a beautiful phrase, I think it's by Lenin: 'Ethics is the
aesthetics of the future.' I find this phrase beautiful and also very
moving. it reconciles the right and the left."
In an interview at the time Godard repeats the phrase and says: "It's by
Gorky, but I attribute it to Lenin because I prefer Lenin."
Thanks also to John Riley for the Russianist list.
While we're at it, does anyone know where these two phrases used in Le petit
soldat might come from:
Sometimes you must have the stength to carve your path with a dagger. (Il
faut avoir la force quelquefois de frayer son chemin avec un poignard)
Perhaps with remorse begins liberty. (Peut-ête qu'avec le remords commence
la liberté.) This phrase also appears in Denis's Beau travail.
thanks
Roland-François Lack
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