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 the collected writings of
J O H N M AY NA R D K E Y N E S
Managing Editors:
Professor Austin Robinson and Professor Donald Moggridge

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) was without doubt one of the most influ-
ential thinkers of the twentieth century. His work revolutionised the theory
and practice of modern economics. It has had a profound impact on the
way economics is taught and written, and on economic policy, around the
world. The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, published in full in
electronic and paperback format for the first time, makes available in thirty
volumes all of Keynes’s published books and articles. This includes writings
from his time in the India Office and Treasury, correspondence in which he
developed his ideas in discussion with fellow economists and correspondence
relating to public affairs. Arguments about Keynes’s work have continued
long beyond his lifetime, but his ideas remain central to any understanding of
modern economics, and a point of departure from which each new generation
of economists draws inspiration.

Between the outbreak of war in 1939 and his death in April 1946, Keynes
was closely involved in the management of Britain’s war economy and the
planning of the post-war world. This volume, the fifth of six dealing with
this period, focuses on three aspects of his activities in planning the post-war
world: the final stages of the discussions and negotiations that brought the
International Monetary Fund and World Bank to birth at Bretton Woods and
Savannah, the negotiations over commercial policy, and the discussions on
reparations and the post-war treatment of Germany. On all of these subjects
it contains Keynes’s attempts to influence, often with success, the course of
events in both Britain and America.

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 THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

VO LU M E X X V I

ACTIVITIES 1941–1946
SHAPING THE POST-WAR WORLD:
B R E T TO N WO O D S A N D R E PA R AT I O N S

edited by
DONALD MOGGRIDGE

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

for the
ROYAL ECONOMIC SOCIETY

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 © The Royal Economic Society 1980, 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication

may be reproduced or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, without permission

Published for the Royal Economic Society

throughout the world by
cambridge university press
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town,
Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru, UK

Published in the United States of America by

Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107617162

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.

This edition published 2013

Printed and bound in the United Kingdom
by the MPG Books Group

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

isbn 978-1-107-61716-2 Paperback

30-volume set isbn 978-1-107-67772-2

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 CONTENTS

General introduction page vii

Editorial note xiii

1 BRETTON WOODS AND AFTER, APRIL 1 9 4 4 -

MARCH 1946 I

2 COMMERCIAL POLICY, DECEMBER 1 9 4 1 -

DECEMBER 1945 239

3 REPARATIONS, SEPTEMBER 1 9 4 1 - 328

DECEMBER 1945

Appendix: Selections from the Articles of Agree-

ment of the International Monetary Fund 402

Acknowledgements ^\ 1

List of Documents Reproduced 412

Index 419

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 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

This new standard edition of The Collected Writings of John

Maynard Keynes forms the memorial to him of the Royal
Economic Society. He devoted a very large share of his busy
life to the Society. In 1911, at the age of twenty-eight, he became
editor of the Economic Journal in succession to Edgeworth: two
years later he was made secretary as well. He held these offices
without intermittence until almost the end of his life. Edgeworth,
it is true, returned to help him with the editorship from 1919
to 1925; Macgregor took Edgeworth's place until 1934, when
Austin Robinson succeeded him and continued to assist Keynes
down to 1945. But through all these years Keynes himself
carried the major responsibility and made the principal decisions
about the articles that were to appear in the Economic Journal,
without any break save for one or two issues when he was
seriously ill in 1937. It was only a few months before his death
at Easter 1946 that he was elected president and handed over
his editorship to Roy Harrod and the secretaryship to Austin
Robinson.
In his dual capacity of editor and secretary Keynes played
a major part in framing the policies of the Royal Economic
Society. It was very largely due to him that some of the major
publishing activities of the Society-—Sraffa's edition of Ricardo,
Stark's edition of the economic writings of Bentham, and
Guillebaud's edition of Marshall, as well as a number of earlier
publications in the 1930s—were initiated.
When Keynes died in 1946 it was natural that the Royal
Economic Society should wish to commemorate him. It was
perhaps equally natural that the Society chose to commemorate
him by producing an edition of his collected works. Keynes
vii

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 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
himself had always taken a joy in fine printing, and the Society,
with the help of Messrs Macmillan as publishers and the
Cambridge University Press as printers, has been anxious to give
Keynes's writings a permanent form that is wholly worthy of
him.
The present edition will publish as much as is possible of his
work in the field of economics. It will not include any private
and personal correspondence or publish many letters in the
possession of his family. The edition is concerned, that is to say,
with Keynes as an economist.
Keynes's writings fall into five broad categories. First there
are the books which he wrote and published as books. Second
there are collections of articles and pamphlets which he himself
made during his lifetime (Essays in Persuasion and Essays in
Biography). Third, there is a very considerable volume of
published but uncollected writings—articles written for news-
papers, letters to newspapers, articles in journals that have not
been included in his two volumes of collections, and various
pamphlets. Fourth, there are a few hitherto unpublished writ-
ings. Fifth, there is correspondence with economists and
concerned with economics or public affairs. It is the intention
of this series to publish almost completely the whole of the first
four categories listed above. The only exceptions are a few
syndicated articles where Keynes wrote almost the same material
for publication in different newspapers or in different countries,
with minor and unimportant variations. In these cases, this
series will publish one only of the variations, choosing the most
interesting.
The publication of Keynes's economic correspondence must
inevitably be selective. In the day of the typewriter and the filing
cabinet and particularly in the case of so active and busy a man,
to publish every scrap of paper that he may have dictated about
some unimportant or ephemeral matter is impossible. We are
aiming to collect and publish as much as possible, however, of
the correspondence in which Keynes developed his own ideas
viii

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 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
in argument with his fellow economists, as well as the more
significant correspondence at times when Keynes was in the
middle of public affairs.
Apart from his published books, the main sources available
to those preparing this series have been two. First, Keynes in
his will made Richard Kahn his executor and responsible for
his economic papers. They have been placed in the Marshall
Library of the University of Cambridge and have been available
for this edition. Until 1914 Keynes did not have a secretary and
his earliest papers are in the main limited to drafts of important
letters that he made in his own handwriting and retained. At
that stage most of the correspondence that we possess is
represented by what he received rather than by what he wrote.
During the war years of 1914-18 and 1940-6 Keynes was
serving in the Treasury. With the opening in 1968 of the records
under the thirty-year rule, the papers that he wrote then and
between the wars have become available. From 1919 onwards,
throughout the rest of his life, Keynes had the help of a
secretary—for many years Mrs Stephens. Thus for the last
twenty-five years of his working life we have in most cases the
carbon copies of his own letters as well as the originals of the
letters that he received.
There were, of course, occasions during this period on which
Keynes wrote himself in his own handwriting. In some of these
cases, with the help of his correspondents, we have been able
to collect the whole of both sides of some important interchanges
and we have been anxious, in justice to both correspondents,
to see that both sides of the correspondence are published in
full.
The second main source of information has been a group of
scrapbooks kept over a very long period of years by Keynes's
mother, Florence Keynes, wife of Neville Keynes. From 1919
onwards these scrapbooks contain almost the whole of Maynard
Keynes's more ephemeral writing, his letters to newspapers and
a great deal of material which enables one to see not only what
ix

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 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
he wrote but the reaction of others to his writing. Without
these very carefully kept scrapbooks the task of any editor
or biographer of Keynes would have been immensely more
difficult.
The plan of the edition, as at present intended, is this. It will
total thirty volumes. Of these the first eight are Keynes's
published books from Indian Currency and Finance, in 1913, to
the General Theory in 1936, with the addition of his Treatise on
Probability. There next follow, as vols. ix and x, Essays in
Persuasion and Essays in Biography, representing Keynes's own
collections of articles. Essays in Persuasion differs from the
original printing in two respects: it contains the full texts of the
articles or pamphlets included in it and not (as in the original
printing) abbreviated versions of these articles, and it also
contains two later pamphlets which are of exactly the same
character as those included by Keynes in his original collection.
In Essays in Biography there have been added a number of
biographical studies that Keynes wrote both before and after
1933-
There will follow two volumes, xi-xn, of economic articles
and correspondence and a further two volumes, already pub-
lished, xm-xiv, covering the development of his thinking as he
moved towards the General Theory. There are included in these
volumes such part of Keynes's economic correspondence as is
closely associated with the articles that are printed in them. A
supplement to these volumes, xxix, prints some further material
relating to the same issues, which has since been discovered.
The remaining fourteen volumes deal with Keynes's Activities
during the years from the beginning of his public life in 1905
until his death. In each of the periods into which we divide this
material, the volume concerned publishes his more ephemeral
writings, all of it hitherto uncollected, his correspondence
relating to these activities, and such other material and corre-
spondence as is necessary to the understanding of Keynes's
activities. These volumes are edited by Elizabeth Johnson and

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 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Donald Moggridge, and it has been their task to trace and
interpret Keynes's activities sufficiently to make the material
fully intelligible to a later generation. Elizabeth Johnson has
been responsible for vols. XV-XVIII, covering Keynes's earlier
years and his activities down to the end of World War I
reparations and reconstruction. Donald Moggridge is respon-
sible for all the remaining volumes recording Keynes's other
activities from 1922 until his death in 1946.
The present plan of publication is to complete the record of
Keynes's activities during World War II with the group of
volumes of which this forms one. These volumes will cover his
contributions both in the Treasury and at Bretton Woods and
elsewhere to the shaping of the post-war world. The volume
containing the new material relating to the evolution of the
Treatise and the General Theory has been published separately
as volume xxix. It will then remain to fill the gap between 1922
and 1939, to print certain of his published articles and the
correspondence relating to them which have not appeared
elsewhere in this edition, and to publish a volume of his social,
political and literary writings.
Those responsible for this edition have been: Lord Kahn,
both as Lord Keynes's executor and as a long and intimate friend
of Lord Keynes, able to help in the interpreting of much that
would be otherwise misunderstood; the late Sir Roy Harrod as
the author of his biography; Austin Robinson as Keynes's
co-editor on the Economic jfournal and successor as Secretary of
the Royal Economic Society. Austin Robinson has acted
throughout as Managing Editor; Donald Moggridge is now
associated with him as Joint Managing Editor.
In the early stages of the work Elizabeth Johnson was assisted
by Jane Thistlethwaite, and by Mrs McDonald, who was
originally responsible for the systematic ordering of the files of
the Keynes papers. Judith Masterman for many years worked
with Mrs Johnson on the papers. More recently Susan Wilsher,
Margaret Butler and Leonora Woollam have continued the
xi

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 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
secretarial work. Barbara Lowe has been responsible for the
indexing. Susan Howson undertook much of the important final
editorial work on the wartime volumes. Since 1977 Judith Allen
has been responsible for seeing the volumes through the press.

xn

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 EDITORIAL NOTE

This volume is the second of three concerned with Keynes's

efforts to shape the post-war world.
The main sources for this volume are Keynes's surviving
papers, materials in the Public Record Office and, on occasion,
the papers of colleagues and friends. Where the material has
come from the Public Record Office, the call numbers for the
relevant files appear in the List of Documents Reproduced
following page 409.
In this and the other wartime volumes, to aid the reader in
keeping track of the various personalities who pass through the
pages that follow, we have included brief biographical notes on
the first occasion on which they appear. These notes are
designed to be cumulative over the whole run of wartime
volumes.
In this, as in all the similar volumes, in general all of Keynes's
own writings are printed in larger type. Keynes's own footnotes
are indicated by asterisks or other symbols, to distinguish them
from the editorial footnotes. All introductory matter and all
writings by others than Keynes are printed in smaller type. The
only exception to this general rule is that occasional short
quotations from a letter from Keynes to his parents or to a
friend, used in introductory passages to clarify a situation, are
treated as introductory matter and are printed in the smaller
type-
Most of Keynes's letters included in this and other volumes
are reprinted from the carbon copies that remain among his
papers. In most cases he has added his initials to the carbon in
the familiar fashion in which he signed to all his friends. We
have no certain means of knowing whether the top copy, sent
to the recipient of the letter, carried a more formal signature.

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 Chapter i
BRETTON WOODS AND AFTER, APRIL
1944-MARCH 1946

After publication of the Joint Statement, Keynes had two meetings with
M.P.s on the proposals. He reported their results to the Chancellor's Private
Secretary on 28 April.

To T. PADMORE, 28 April IQ44

THE MONETARY PROPOSALS

After long discussions with the two groups of M.P.'s I find very
little sign of definite opposition. I think there will be a good
many questions asked and cautions raised, and certainly an
atmosphere of hesitation in some quarters, but very little
decided opposition. The upshot would be I should say a clear
general view in favour of going ahead in spite of this and that.
At the Conservative group, which included Mr. Hammersley,
Sir Alfred Beit, Sir Arnold Gridley, Sir Irving Albery, Sir
Archibald Southby, Mr. Spearman, and Mr. Robert Boothby,
all ended the evening decidedly in favour, with the exception
of Boothby. His arguments produced no impression whatever
on his friends and were somewhat a matter of derision towards
the end of the evening. I had the impression that Sir Alfred Beit,
Sir Arnold Gridley, Sir Archibald Southby and Mr. Spearman
were strongly in favour, and Mr. Hammersley and Sir Irving
Albery also reasonably happy about it. Beit will, I think, make
a speech saying that just as he was opposed to preference
concessions, so, on the other hand, he is entirely in favour of
a currency move forward along these lines.
When Boothby ventured the remark that there was going to
be widespread opposition the others said that they had not come

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 ACTIVITIES 1941-IO.46
across it, and were not conscious of probable strong opponents,
except perhaps Shinwell, Walter Elliott and Boothby.
At the second meeting there were present amongst others, Sir
John Wardlaw-Milne, Mr. R. J. G. Boothby, The Rt. Hon. F.
W. Pethick-Lawrence, Mr. P. C. Loftus and Lord Hinchin-
brook. The doubts raised at this gathering were much more
on the lines as to whether we were surrendering our privileges
of expansionist policy and the like, and whether we were not
submitting to too much international control. But my impression
of the final outcome was that there was no sign of opposition
and considerable sign of support (apart from Boothby who on
this occasion was almost silent and gave signs I thought of being
considerably shaken in his opposition). Sir John Wardlaw-Milne
seemed decidedly in favour. I think that Mr. Pethick-Lawrence
might make a rather colourless speech raising a good many
doubts and hesitations, but saying in the end that in spite of all
this, he acquiesces without enthusiasm. His attitude may be
a little more favourable than that because I have found by
experience that on an occasion like this he quite rightly
emphasises in talking to one, his doubts rather than any
counter-balancing feelings he may have.
I should say that anyone who tries to take the line that this
is simply the gold standard over again will not be taken
seriously. Nor has anyone pressed the point that the proposed
arrangements would interfere with the sterling area. It seemed
to me that the Chancellor's reply on this was being accepted as
a reliable interpretation. The real ground of hesitation is fear
of putting our neck under some sort of yoke, the exact nature
of which was not clearly apprehended. It was also generally
appreciated that we shall not be particularly well equipped at
the end of the war for a free-for-all fight, and that we might easily
have more to gain in laying down certain general principles of
conduct than we had to lose from this. I found that argument
carried a good deal of weight. Indeed, that is only one more
illustration of what is the underlying truth, namely that none

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 BRETTON WOODS AND AFTER
of these schemes will ever be accepted for their own beautiful
eyes or special merits, but because as soon as one faces the
probable alternative it is obviously so much worse.
[copy initialled] K
28 April

Before the Parliamentary discussions of the Joint Statement, the British

began discussions with the European Allies, taking the opportunity to explain
the scheme clause by clause in three meetings on 1, 3 and 8 May. As well
as taking part in these discussions, Keynes also met some of the Dominion
premiers who were in London for discussions on Article VII, in particular
Mr Bruce1 and General Smuts. He also met his old friend W. S. Robinson,2
who was advising Mr Curtin.3

The House of Commons debate on 10 May brought the following

comment to Pethick-Lawrence in reply to a letter expressing sympathy at
the critical tone of the proceedings.

To F. W. PETHICK-LAWRENCE, l6 May 1944

My dear Pethick-Lawrence,
It was very comforting to get your letter. I spent seven hours
in the cursed Gallery, lacerated in mind and body, and the only
moment of satisfaction came when you rose to speak followed
by the Chancellor. I thought both these contributions were
first-class. For the rest, apart from another brave speech from
Spearman, the whole thing was smeared by this unreasoning
wave of isolationism and anti-Americanism which is for no
obscure reason passing over us just now. Somewhat superficial
perhaps but nevertheless to be reckoned with.
1
Stanley Melbourne Bruce (1883-1967), 1st Viscount Melbourne; Prime Minister of
Australia and Minister for External Affairs, 1923-9; Australian Minister in London, 1932-3;
High Commissioner for Australia in London, 1933-45, and Minister for Australia to the
Netherlands Government, 1942-5.
2
W. S. Robinson, Australian financier.
3
John Curtin (1885-1945), Prime Minister of Australia, 1941-5.

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 ACTIVITIES IO.4I-I946
However, I do not feel that any real harm was done. The thing
will grind along. We shall produce a further version and when
at a later date the House is eventually faced with the alternative
of turning their back on all this sort of thing and begin to
appreciate what that means, I have not the slightest doubt that
they will change their minds.
Sincerely yours,
[copy initialled] K

On 16 May, Viscount Bennett opened a discussion in the House of Lords

asking the Government to indicate their assumptions as to post-war policies
on other economic matters prior to the debate on the Joint Statement
scheduled for 23 May. His suggestion of delaying a decision until more
information was available was supported by Lord Strabolgi. At this stage
Keynes intervened.

From House of Lords Debates, 16 May 1944

LORD KEYNES: My Lords, I understand that the proposals of

the White Paper are to be debated in your Lordships' House
next week, and I do not want to anticipate that debate in any
way, but I would like to see whether I can help to answer Lord
Bennett's question as to the usefulness of having that debate
without more evidence on certain other matters. He is, of course,
quite right, as he stated in his preface, that the experts conceived
these proposals as part of a wider and more comprehensive
scheme of international co-operation to cover other topics. I
think it is quite a different thing to say that we can discuss one
part of the plan first and to say that our post-war problems can
be solved by that means alone without the aid of all the other
schemes. For example, the stabilisation policy of the cost of
living will be very greatly facilitated if steps could be found to
mitigate the fluctuation of international prices of primary
commodities. The expansion of our export industries which is
so vital to us would be much easier if obstacles to trade can be
diminished or done away with altogether. The policy of full
4

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 BRETTON WOODS AND AFTER
employment to which His Majesty's Government are committed
would be immensely easier in practice if we could have a
concerted policy with other countries, and if we all moved
altogether and did not allow what is sometimes called the export
of unemployment from one country to another.
It is perfectly true we shall not know how to deal with our
post-war problems as a whole until we have a complete plan
before us covering all these subjects. That seems to me clear.
But it is not so clear that we have, therefore, to postpone
everything until we know the complete scheme, which may
present great difficulties and for reasons that have been men-
tioned may have to be delayed for quite an appreciable time yet.
To begin with, there is a logical reason for dealing with the
monetary proposals first. It is extraordinarily difficult to frame
any proposals about tariffs if countries are free to alter the value
of their currencies without agreement and at short notice. Tariffs
and currency depreciations are in many cases alternatives.
Without currency agreements you have no firm ground on which
to discuss tariffs. In the same way plans for diminishing the
fluctuation of international prices have no domestic meaning to
the countries concerned until we have some firm ground in the
value of money. Therefore, whilst the other schemes are not
essential as prior proposals to the monetary scheme, it may well
be argued, I think, that a monetary scheme gives a firm
foundation on which the others can be built. It is very difficult
while you have monetary chaos to have order of any kind in other
directions.
I see no particular reason why the understanding of the
monetary scheme would be assisted by further knowledge on the
other matters. In fact, if we are less successful than we hope for
in other directions, monetary proposals, instead of being less
necessary, will be all the more necessary. If there is going to be
great difficulty in planning trade owing to tariff obstacles, that
makes it all the more important that there should be an agreed
orderly procedure for altering exchanges. Therefore I should say
5

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 ACTIVITIES I94I-I946
that so far from the monetary proposals depending for their
success on the rest of the programme, they would be the more
necessary if that programme is less successful than we all hope
it is going to be. On the other hand, if we have firm ground on
this particular issue it will be a great deal easier to reach a
satisfactory answer on other questions. It is perhaps an accident
that the monetary proposals got started first and are therefore
more fully developed; but I am not sure it was not a fortunate
accident for the logical reasons I have given. As we cannot talk
about everything at once, let us talk about these first.

The next day Keynes briefed Lord Addison4 who was to open the
monetary debate in the Lords.

To LORD ADDISON, 17 May 1944

Dear Addison,
The great misfortune about the Debate in the House of
Commons on the Monetary Proposals was in my judgement the
under-current of isolationism and anti-American co-operation
which ran through a great many of the speeches. I am sure that
you are not at all likely to agree to that, and so I feel it would
be very helpful if, in the Debate in the Lords, this note
disappears so far as possible.
You ask me to jot down a few suggestions as to the possible
line. I do not know if something like the following might be
roughly what is in your mind, judging from what you said in
conversation:
(1) One naturally welcomes the first concrete attempt at
international co-operation in the economic field. Surely it is a
considerable thing for the experts of so many nations to have
agreed, and one naturally wants to treat the outcome in the most
sympathetic spirit possible.
4
Christopher Addison (1869—1951); 1st Baron 1937, 1st Viscount 1945; M.P. (Liberal) for
Hoxton Division, Shoreditch, 1910—22; M.P. (Labour) for Swindon, 1929—31, 1934-5;
Minister of Health, 1919-21; Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, 1930-1.

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 BRETTON WOODS AND AFTER
(2) No one is more convinced than the noble Lords on these
benches of the vital importance of success in securing
international co-operation in the economic field as well as in the
political. The fact that we naturally want to examine the
proposals closely and to be fully convinced that there are
safeguards for all our proper and indeed indispensable national
interests, must in no wise be interpreted as being made in any
spirit of hostility to the important and most desirable objects
in view.
(3) There are certain questions in particular where I, at any
rate, would be grateful for further elucidation and enlighten-
ment—and also in some cases of re-assurance. The policy of full
employment which we all put in the fore-front of our post-war
economic programme, would need for its implementation a
volume of exports far beyond what we have reached in recent
years. How far do these proposals facilitate this task? How clear
is it that we shall be entirely unfettered in our domestic policy?
Can we be sure that, whatever may be the level of exchange from
time to time, the [one] most appropriate to our internal and
external equilibrium will be secured, and that there is no risk
whatever of the impediments which are so vivid in our memories,
and which were so utterly disastrous in 1931?
But I expect I am running on unnecessarily long. My only
object was to suggest the sort of order of things which might
help to keep the subsequent debate logical. The actual questions
which are bothering you are very possibly not those I have
indicated.
You mentioned I think that you would be following very
much the same line as Pethick-Lawrence took in the other
House. I thought his remarks were extremely helpful. Indeed
more positive in their approval than what I have indicated above.
So I do hope you will go as far as you can in giving us some
sort of blessing. For we need it. We have worked very hard and
really believe that the position is far better safeguarded than the
superficial critic realises, and that if we allow these negotiations
7

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 ACTIVITIES 1941-1946
to break down we may quite likely find ourselves forced at a later
date into something very much less well safe-guarded than what
is now in view. o. .
Sincerely yours,
[copy initialled] K

On 18 May, The Times published a letter from Thomas Balogh5 asking

for clarification in plain English as to the relationship between the Joint
Statement and planned trading and bilateralism. Keynes replied on the same
day.

To the Editor of The Times, 18 May 1944

Sir,
Since the monetary proposals are concerned only with
currency, they involve no commitments about commercial
arrangements. But Dr Balogh is, of course, under a strange
misapprehension if he believes that they do not even involve
commitments about currency. For this would be contrary to the
plain meaning and purpose of the plan.
During the transitional period the war-time restrictions can
be maintained and adapted, as will be unfortunately inevitable.
But after the transitional period, with a saving clause for the
abnormal war balances, the members of the fund undertake to
maintain inter-convertibility of their currencies. In particular
they agree to refrain from bilateral agreements which would
have the effect of restricting the availability of foreign-owned
funds arising out of current transactions. In other words, we
shall all be free, having sold our exports in one country, to spend
the proceeds in any other country.
Indeed, this is one of the main objects and merits of the plan.
No country has more to gain from it than ourselves. For it is
a characteristic of our trade that our important sources of supply
5
Thomas Balogh (b. 1905), Life Peer 1968; economist in the City of London, 1931-9;
National Institute of Economic and Social Research, 1938-42; Oxford University Institute
of Statistics, 1940-55; Special Lecturer, 1955-60.

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 BRETTON WOODS AND AFTER
are not always our best customers. Moreover, if our permanent
policy involves us in having many different kinds of sterling,
each subject to different conditions of use, farewell to London
as an international centre. Farewell, also, to the sterling area and
all that it stands for. Our traditional arrangements were based
on the general convertibility of sterling; for who, except in
conditions of war and out of a readiness to help us finance it,
would bank in London if the funds deposited there were not
freely available? To adapt a famous phrase, Schachtian minds
ill consort with great Empires. Since we are not (so far as I am
aware), except perhaps Dr Balogh, disciples of Dr Schacht, it
is greatly to our interest that others should agree to refrain from
such disastrous practices.
As to capital movements, whether within or outside the
sterling area, members of the Fund agree not to make ' a large
or continuing use' of the resources of the Fund to invest abroad.
They are free to do what they like out of their own resources.
Thus no capital transaction, which would be within our capacity
in the absence of the Fund, is put beyond it by the existence of
the fund. In any case, some control of overseas capital issues will
be required to prevent loans on a scale beyond our capacity.
All this is set forth in the plan in the plain English for which
Dr Balogh asks, but which apparently he cannot understand.
Yours, &c,
KEYNES

Following Lord Addison, Keynes rose to speak in the House of Lords on

23 May.

From House of Lords Debates, 23 May ig44

LORD KEYNES: My Lords, it is almost exactly a year since the

proposals for a Clearing Union were discussed in your
Lordships' House. I hope to persuade your Lordships that the
9

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 ACTIVITIES I94I-I946
year has not been ill-spent. There were, it is true, certain
features of elegance, clarity and logic in the Clearing Union plan
which have disappeared. And this, by me at least, is to be much
regretted. As a result, however, there is no longer any need for
a new-fangled international monetary unit. Your Lordships will
remember how little any of us liked the names proposed-
-bancor, unitas, dolphin, bezant, daric and heaven knows what.
Some of your Lordships were good enough to join in the search
for something better. I recall a story of a country parish in the
last century where they were accustomed to give their children
Biblical names—Amos, Ezekiel, Obadiah and so forth. Needing
a name for a dog, after a long and vain search of the Scriptures
they called the dog 'Moreover'. We hit on no such happy
solution, with the result that it has been the dog that died. The
loss of the dog we need not too much regret, though I still think
that it was a more thoroughbred animal that what has now come
out from a mixed marriage of ideas. Yet, perhaps, as sometimes
occurs, this dog of mixed origin is a sturdier and more
serviceable animal and will prove not less loyal and faithful to
the purposes for which it has been bred.
I commend the new plan to your Lordships as being, in some
important respects (to which I will return later), a considerable
improvement on either of its parents. I like this new plan and
I believe that it will work to our advantage. Your Lordships will
not wish me to enter into too much technical detail. I can best
occupy the time available by examining the major benefits this
country may hope to gain from the plan; and whether there are
adequate safeguards against possible disadvantages. We shall
emerge from this war, having won a more solid victory over our
enemies, a more enduring friendship from our Allies, and a
deeper respect from the world at large, than perhaps at any time
in our history. The victory, the friendship, and the respect will
have been won, because, in spite of faint-hearted preparations,
we have sacrificed every precaution for the future in the interests
of immediate strength with a fanatical single-mindedness which
10

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 BRETTON WOODS AND AFTER
has had few parallels. But the full price of this has still to be
paid. I wish that this was more generally appreciated in the
country than it is. In thus waging the war without counting the
ultimate cost we—and we alone of the United Nations—have
burdened ourselves with a weight of deferred indebtedness to
other countries beneath which we shall stagger. We have already
given to the common cause all, and more than all, that we can
afford. It follows that we must examine any financial plan to
make sure that it will help us to carry our burdens and not add
to them. No one is more deeply convinced of this than I am.
I make no complaint, therefore, that those to whom the details
of the scheme are new and difficult, should scrutinise them with
anxious concern.
What, then, are these major advantages that I hope from the
plan to the advantage of this country? First, it is clearly
recognised and agreed that, during the post-war transitional
period of uncertain duration, we are entitled to retain any of
those war-time restrictions, and special arrangements with the
sterling area and others which are helpful to us, without being
open to the charge of acting contrary to any general engagements
into which we have entered. Having this assurance, we can make
our plans for the most difficult days which will follow the war,
knowing where we stand and without risk of giving grounds of
offence. This is a great gain—and one of the respects in which
the new plan is much superior to either of its predecessors,
which did not clearly set forth any similar safeguards.
Second, when this period is over and we are again strong
enough to live year by year on our own resources, we can look
forward to trading in a world of national currencies which are
inter-convertible. For a great commercial nation like ourselves
this is indispensable for full prosperity. Sterling itself, in due
course, must obviously become, once again, generally conver-
tible. For, without this, London must necessarily lose its
international position, and the arrangements in particular of the
sterling area would fall to pieces. To suppose that a system of
II

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 ACTIVITIES I94I-I946
bilateral and barter agreements, with no one who owns sterling
knowing just what he can do with it—to suppose that this is
the best way of encouraging the Dominions to centre their
financial systems on London, seems to me pretty near frenzy.
As a technique of little Englandism, adopted as the last resort
when all else has failed us, with this small country driven to
autarky, keeping itself to itself in a harsh and unfriendly world,
it might make more sense. But those who talk this way, in the
expectation that the rest of the Commonwealth will throw in
their lot on these lines and cut their free commercial relations
with the rest of the world, can have very little idea how this
Empire has grown or by what means it can be sustained.
So far from an international plan endangering the long
tradition, by which most Empire countries, and many other
countries, too, have centred their financial systems in London,
the plan is, in my judgement, an indispensable means of
maintaining this tradition. With our own resources so greatly
impaired and encumbered, it is only if sterling is firmly placed
in an international setting that the necessary confidence in it can
be sustained. Indeed, even during the transitional period, it will
be our policy, I hope, steadily to develop the field within which
sterling is freely available as rapidly as we can manage. Now if
our own goal is, as it surely must be, the general inter-
convertibility of sterling with other currencies, it must obviously
be to our trading advantage that the same obtains elsewhere, so
that we can sell our exports in one country and freely spend the
proceeds in any other. It is a great gain to us in particular, that
other countries in the world should agree to refrain from those
discriminatory exchange practices which we ourselves have
never adopted in times of peace but from which in the recent
past our traders have suffered greatly at the hands of others. My
noble friend Lord Addison has asked whether such an
arrangement could be operated in such a way that certain
markets might be closed to British exports. I can firmly assure
him that none of the monetary proposals will do so provided
12

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 BRETTON WOODS AND AFTER
that if we find ourselves with currencies in a foreign country
which we do not choose to spend in. that country, we can then
freely remit them somewhere else to buy goods in another
country. There is no compulsion on us, and if we choose to come
to a particular bargain in the country where we have resources,
then that is entirely at our discretion.
Third, the wheels of trade are to be oiled by what is, in effect,
a great addition to the world's stock of monetary reserves,
distributed, moreover, in a reasonable way. The quotas are not
so large as under the Clearing Union, and Lord Addison drew
attention to that. But they are substantial and can be increased
subsequently if the need is shown. The aggregate for the world
is put provisionally at £2,500 million. Our own share of this—for
ourselves and the Crown Colonies which, I may mention, are
treated for all purposes as a part of the British monetary system
(in itself a useful acknowledgement)—is £325 million, a sum
which may easily double, or more than double, the reserves
which we shall otherwise hold at the end of the transitional
period. The separate quotas of the rest of the sterling area will
make a further large addition to this. Who is so confident of the
future that he will wish to throw away so comfortable a
supplementary aid in time of trouble ? Do the critics think it
preferable, if the winds of the trade cycle blow, to diminish our
demand for imports by increasing unemployment at home,
rather than meet the emergency out of this Fund which will be
expressly provided for such temporary purposes?
I emphasize that such is the purpose of the quotas. They are
not intended as daily food for us or any other country to live
upon during the reconstruction or afterwards. Provision for that
belongs to another chapter of international co-operation, upon
which we shall embark shortly unless you discourage us unduly
about this one. The quotas for drawing on the Fund's resources
are an iron ration to tide over temporary emergencies of one kind
or another. Perhaps this is the best reply I can make to Lord
Addison's doubts whether our quota is large enough. It is
13

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 ACTIVITIES 1941-1946
obviously not large enough for us to live upon during the
reconstruction period. But this is not its purpose. Pending
further experience, it is, in my judgement, large enough for the
purposes for which it is intended.
There is another advantage to which I would draw your
Lordships' special attention. A proper share of responsibility for
maintaining equilibrium in the balance of international pay-
ments is squarely placed on the creditor countries. This is one
of the major improvements in the new plan. The Americans,
who are the most likely to be affected by this, have, of their own
free will and honest purpose, offered us a far-reaching formula
of protection against a recurrence of the main cause of deflation
during the inter-war years, namely the draining of reserves out
of the rest of the world to pay a country which was obstinately
borrowing and exporting on a scale immensely greater than it
was lending and importing. Under Clause VI of the plan a
country engages itself, in effect, to prevent such a situation from
arising again, by promising, should it fail, to release other
countries from any obligation to take its exports, or, if taken,
to pay for them. I cannot imagine that this sanction would ever
be allowed to come into effect. If by no other means, than by
lending, the creditor country will always have to find a way to
square the account on imperative grounds of its own self-interest.
For it will no longer be entitled to square the account by
squeezing gold out of the rest of us. Here we have a voluntary
undertaking, genuinely offered in the spirit both of a good
neighbour and, I should add, of enlightened self-interest, not
to allow a repetition of a chain of events which between the wars
did more than any other single factor to destroy the world's
economic balance and to prepare a seed-bed for foul growths.
This is a tremendous extension of international co-operation to
good ends. I pray your Lordships to pay heed to its importance.
Fifth, the plan sets up an international institution with
substantial rights and duties to preserve orderly arrangements
in matters such as exchange rates which are two-ended and affect
14

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 BRETTON WOODS AND AFTER
both parties alike, which can also serve as a place of regular
discussion between responsible authorities to find ways to escape
those many unforeseeable dangers which the future holds. The
noble Lord, Lord Addison, asks how the Fund is to be managed.
Admittedly this is not yet worked out in the necessary detail and
it was right that he should stress the point. But three points
which may help him, are fairly clear. This is an organisation
between governments, in which central banks only appear as the
instrument and agent of their government. The voting power
of the British Commonwealth and that of the United States are
expected to be approximately equal. The management will be
in three tiers—a body of expert, whole time officials who will
be responsible for the routine; a small board of management
which will make all decisions of policy subject to any over-riding
instructions from the Assembly, an Assembly of all the member
governments meeting less often and retaining a supervisory, but
not an executive, control. That is perhaps even a little better
than appears.
Here are five advantages of major importance. The proposals
go far beyond what, even a short time ago, anyone could have
conceived of as a possible basis of general international agree-
ment. What alternative is open to us which gives comparable
aid, or better, more hopeful opportunities for the future? I have
considerable confidence that something very like this plan will
be in fact adopted, if only on account of the plain demerits of
the alternative of rejection. You can talk against this plan, so
long as it is a matter of talking—saying in the same breath that
it goes too far and that it does not go far enough, that it is too
rigid to be safe and that it is too loose to be worth anything.
But it would require great fool-hardiness to reject it, much more
fool-hardiness than is to be found in this wise, intuitive country.
Therefore, for these manifold and substantial benefits I
commend the monetary proposals to your Lordships. Never-
theless, before you will give them your confidence, you will wish
to consider whether, in return, we are surrendering anything
15

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 ACTIVITIES I94I-1946
which is vital for the ordering of our domestic affairs in the
manner we intend for the future. My Lords, the experience of
the years before the war has led most of us, though some of us
late in the day, to certain firm conclusions. Three, in particular,
are highly relevant to this discussion. We are determined that,
in future, the external value of sterling shall conform to its
internal value as set by our own domestic policies, and not the
other way round. Secondly, we intend to retain control of our
domestic rate of interest, so that we can keep it as low as suits
our own purposes, without interference from the ebb and flow
of international capital movements or flights of hot money.
Thirdly, whilst we intend to prevent inflation at home, we will
not accept deflation at the dictate of influences from outside. In
other words, we abjure the instruments of Bank rate and credit
contraction operating through the increase of unemployment as
a means of forcing our domestic economy into line with external
factors.
Have those responsible for the monetary proposals been
sufficiently careful to preserve these principles from the pos-
sibility of interference? I hope your Lordships will trust me not
to have turned my back on all I have fought for. To establish
those three principles which I have just stated has been my main
task for the last twenty years. Sometimes almost alone, in
popular articles in the Press, in pamphlets, in dozens of letters
to The Times, in text books, in enormous and obscure treatises
I have spent my strength to persuade my countrymen and the
world at large to change their traditional doctrines and, by taking
better thought, to remove the curse of unemployment. Was it
not I, when many of to-day's iconoclasts were still worshippers
of the Calf, who wrote that ' Gold is a barbarous relic' ? Am I
so faithless, so forgetful, so senile that, at the very moment of
the triumph of these ideas when, with gathering momentum.
Governments, parliaments, banks, the Press, the public, and
even economists, have at last accepted the new doctrines, I go

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 BRETTON WOODS AND AFTER
off to help forge new chains to hold us fast in the old dungeon ?
I trust, my Lords, that you will not believe it.
Let me take first the less prominent of the two issues which
arise in this connexion. Namely, our power to control the
domestic rate of interest so as to secure cheap money. Not
merely as a feature of the transition, but as a permanent
arrangement, the plan accords to every member government the
explicit right to control all capital movements. What used to be
a heresy is now endorsed as orthodox. In my own judgement,
countries which avail themselves of this right may find it
necessary to scrutinise all transactions, as to prevent evasion of
capital regulations. Provided that the innocent, current trans-
actions are let through, there is nothing in the plan to prevent
this. In fact, it is encouraged. It follows that our right to control
the domestic capital market is secured on firmer foundations
than ever before, and is formally accepted as a proper part of
agreed international arrangements.
The question, however, which has recently been given chief
prominence is whether we are in any sense returning to the
disabilities of the former gold standard, relief from which we
have rightly learnt to prize so highly. If I have any authority
to pronounce on what is and what is not the essence and meaning
of a gold standard, I should say that this plan is the exact
opposite of it. The plan in its relation to gold is, indeed, very
close to proposals which I advocated in vain as the right
alternative, when I was bitterly opposing this country's return
to gold. The gold standard, as I understand it, means a system
under which the external value of a national currency is rigidly
tied to a fixed quantity of gold which can only honourably be
broken under force majeure; and it involves a financial policy
which compels the internal value of the domestic currency to
conform to this external value as fixed in terms of gold. On the
other hand, the use of gold merely as a convenient common
denominator by means of which the relative values of national

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 ACTIVITIES 1941-1946
currencies—these being free to change—are expressed from
time to time, is obviously quite another matter.
My noble friend Lord Addison asks who fixes the value of
gold. If he means, as I assume he does, the sterling value of gold,
it is we ourselves who fix it initially in consultation with the
Fund; and this value is subject to change at any time on our
initiative, changes in excess of 10 per cent, requiring the
approval of the Fund, which must not withhold approval if our
domestic equilibrium requires it. There must be some price for
gold; and so long as gold is used as a monetary reserve it is most
advisable that the current rates of exchange and the relative
values of gold in different currencies should correspond. The
only alternative to this would be the complete demonetisation
of gold. I am not aware that anyone has proposed that. For it
is only common sense as things are to-day to continue to make
use of gold and its prestige as a means of settling international
accounts. To demonetise gold would obviously be highly objec-
tionable to the British Commonwealth and to Russia as the
main producers, and to the United States and the Western Allies
as the main holders of it. Surely no one disputes that? On the
other hand, in this country we have already de-throned gold as
the fixed standard of value. The plan not merely confirms the
de-thronement but approves it by expressly providing that it is
the duty of the Fund to alter the gold value of any currency if
it is shown that this will be serviceable to equilibrium.
In fact, the plan introduces in this respect an epoch-making
innovation in an international instrument, the object of which
is to lay down sound and orthodox principles. For instead of
maintaining the principle that the internal value of an national
currency should conform to a prescribed de jure external value,
it provides that its external value should be altered if necessary
so as to conform to whatever de facto internal value results from
domestic policies, which themselves shall be immune from
criticism by the Fund. Indeed, it is made the duty of the Fund
to approve changes which will have this effect. That is why I
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 BRETTON WOODS AND AFTER
say that these proposals are the exact opposite of the gold
standard. They lay down by international agreement the essence
of the new doctrine, far removed from the old orthodoxy. If they
do so in terms as inoffensive as possible to the former faith, need
we complain?
No, my Lords, in recommending these proposals I do not blot
a page already written. I am trying to help write a new page.
Public opinion is now converted to a new model, and I believe
a much improved model, of domestic policy. That battle is all
but won. Yet a not less difficult task still remains, namely, to
organize an international setting within which the new domestic
policies can occupy a comfortable place. Therefore, it is above
all as providing an international framework for the new ideas
and the new techniques associated with the policy of full
employment that these proposals are not least to be
welcomed.
Last week my noble friend Lord Bennett asked what assump-
tions the experts might be making about other phases of
international agreement. I do not believe that the soundness of
these foundations depends very much on the details of the
superstructure. If the rest of the issues to be discussed are wisely
settled, the task of the Monetary Fund will be rendered easier.
But if we gain less assistance from other measures than we now
hope, an agreed machinery of adjustment on the monetary side
will be all the more necessary. I am certain that this is not a
case of putting the cart before the horse. I think it most unlikely
that fuller knowledge about future commercial policy would in
itself make it necessary to alter any clause whatever in the
proposals now before your Lordships' House. But if the noble
Viscount meant that these proposals need supplementing in
other directions, no one could agree with him more than I do.
In particular, it is urgent that we should seek agreement about
setting up an International Investment Institution to provide
funds for reconstruction and afterwards. It is precisely because
there is so much to do in the way of international collaboration
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 ACTIVITIES 1941-1946
in the economic field that it would be so disastrous to discourage
this first attempt, or to meet it in a carping, suspicious or cynical
mood.
The noble Lord, Lord Addison, has called the attention of
your Lordships to the striking statement made by Mr Hull in
connexion with the National Foreign Trade Week in the United
States, and I am very glad that he did so. This statement is
important as showing that the policy of the United States
Administration on various issues of political and economic
preparation forms a connected whole. I am certain that the
people of this country are of the same mind as Mr Hull, and
I have complete confidence that he on his side will seek to
implement the details with disinterestedness and generosity. If
the experts of the American and British Treasuries have
pursued the monetary discussions with more ardour, with a
clearer purpose and, I think, with more success so far than has
yet proved possible with other associated matters, need we
restrain them? If, however, there is a general feeling, as I think
that there is, that discussion on other matters should be
expedited, so that we may have a complete picture before us,
I hope that your Lordships will enforce this conclusion in no
uncertain terms. I myself have never supposed that in the final
outcome the monetary proposals should stand by themselves.
It is on this note of emphasising the importance of furthering
all genuine efforts directed towards international agreement in
the economic field that I should wish to end my contribution
to this debate. The proposals which are before your Lordships
are the result of the collaboration of many minds and the fruit
of the collective wisdom of the experts of many nations. I have
spent many days and weeks in the past year in the company of
experts of this country, of the Dominions, of our European
Allies and of the United States; and, in the light of some past
experience I affirm that these discussions have been without
exception a model of what such gatherings should be—objective,
understanding, without waste of time or expense of temper. I
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 BRETTON WOODS AND AFTER
dare to speak for the much abused so-called experts. I even
venture sometimes to prefer them, without intending any
disrespect, to politicians. The common love of truth, bred of a
scientific habit of mind, is the closest of bonds between the
representatives of divers nations.
I wish I could draw back the veil of anonymity and give their
due to the individuals of the most notable group with which I
have ever been associated, covering half the nations of the world,
who from prolonged and difficult consultations, each with their
own interests to protect, have emerged, as we all of us know and
feel in our hearts, a band of brothers. I should like to pay a
particular tribute to the representatives of the United States
Treasury and the State Department and the Federal Reserve
Board in Washington, whose genuine and ready consideration
for the difficulties of others, and whose idealistic and unflagging
pursuit of a better international order, made possible so great
a measure of agreement. I at any rate have come out from a year
thus spent greatly encouraged, encouraged beyond all previous
hope and expectation, about the possibility of just and honour-
able and practical economic arrangements between nations.
Do not discourage us. Perhaps we are laying the first brick,
though it may be a colourless one, in a great edifice. If indeed
it is our purpose to draw back from international co-operation
and to pursue an altogether different order of ideas, the sooner
that this is made clear the better; but that, I believe, is the policy
of only a small minority, and for my part I am convinced that
we cannot on those terms remain a great power and the mother
of a Commonwealth. If, on the other hand, such is not our
purpose, let us clear our minds of excessive doubts and
suspicions and go forward cautiously, by all means, but with the
intention of reaching agreement.

Later in the debate Lord Balfour of Burleigh raised a matter Keynes had
referred to in his letter to The Times (above p. 9). The exchange ran as
follows.
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 ACTIVITIES 1941-1946

From House of Lords Debates, 2j May 1944

LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: The nohle Lord, Lord
Addison, referred to the hulk purchase of food. In passing, I would
like to refer to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, in
regard to abnormal war balances, and I would remind him that there
is in the scheme a saving clause for abnormal war balances after
the transitional period. I think he thought the saving clause was
limited to the transitional period. In point of fact in the scheme the
saving clause for abnormal war balances does apply even after the
transitional period. But the apprehensions which have been aroused
are that, for instance, there might be a desire to do a big trade deal
between this country, and we will say, New Zealand. I well
remember at the time of the slump, when New Zealand was having
great difficulty in sending enough of her exports at the reduced prices
to pay for her obligations over here, New Zealand said to this
country: ' We will give you an undertaking to purchase with the
sterling resulting from our butter the whole of the manufactures you
chose to sell.' It was very difficult for us to give that undertaking.
I do not think we were ever able to. But it is conceivable that New
Zealand might want to say to us: ' We will make very large
shipments of butter to the United Kingdom, and in return you will
send us manufactured goods to the equivalent value.' I have some
slight difficulty in reconciling the right to adopt an arrangement of
that sort with the very sweeping definition which my noble friend
opposite has given us, because it does seem to me that if the sterling
proceeds of that big bulk purchase of New Zealand butter are
earmarkedfor United Kingdom sellers of manufactures, that cannot
be said to leave New Zealand free to spend the proceeds of her butter
money where she likes.
LORD KEYNES: By her own free will. I said that a country,
having sold its exports anywhere, was free to spend the money
resulting from those exports anywhere. In the case of both
countries it must be of their own free will.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: Yes, but having of their own
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 BRETTON WOODS AND AFTER
free will entered into such an agreement, does not it limit the
possibility of other nations being similarly free? Lord Keynes'' letter
to The Times put it the other way round, but I think I could best
illustrate the point by a quotation of what he said to-day. He said:
' We desire to sell in one country and buy in another, therefore it
is important to us that others should refrain from discriminatory
trade practices?
LORD KEYNES: 'Exchange practices' were the words I used.
LORD BELFOUR OF BURLEIGH: Discriminatory exchange
practices. But is it possible to distinguish between my proposal and
allocating definitely a block of currency for one particular purpose?
The noble Lord said if we buy ourselves with currency and we do
not want to sell there, we can spend it elsewhere.
LORD KEYNES: The distinction is whether it is voluntary. If
it is blocked it is not voluntary.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: I am very much obliged for
the explanation, which I think may go some way to relieve the
anxiety of those who really do see a danger to our Imperial trade
on this particular point.

Keynes's replies to Balogh and Lord Balfour led to an exchange of notes

with D. H. Robertson.

From D. H. ROBERTSON, 22 May 1Q44

I have been pondering on your letter to Balogh, in the light of your
memorandum.6
Great Empires and Schachtian minds, as you say, go ill together. But
so, in the (not so) long run, do commercial bilateralism and monetary
multilateralism. Suppose we agree with the Danes to take so much per annum
of their bacon, provided they take from us so much coal which they could
buy cheaper in Poland. Then to the extent of the value of this coal the Danes
are not' free', having sold their exports in one country, to spend the proceeds
in any other country'. Whether the Danish sterling is or is not paid into some
sort of Special Account before being disbursed for coal is a mere matter of

* JMK, vol. xxiv, pp. 33-65.

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 ACTIVITIES 1 9 4 I - I 9 4 6

mechanism. In fact a trade agreement of this kind (which was the usual model
of our agreements made in the 30s) is more restrictive than our present
Payments Agreements, for it stipulates that Danish sterling must be spent
on British coal (or agricultural machinery, or whatever it may be), and not
merely on something British.
So the Baloghs and the Boothbys are right, from their point of view, in
seeing the cloven hoof in the Monetary Plan. For they quite frankly do not
regard commercial multilateralism as being either possible or desirable for
this country, even at the end of a transitional period conceived of as being
of the order of five years in length. And so far as I can make out (though
it is very difficult to make out), this view has now prevailed, at the official
level, in the Treasury.
It may of course be that those of us who still think otherwise,—that it
is both our duty and our interest to work towards a truly multilateral system,
and that the goal is not unattainable—are the victims of wishful thinking,
nostalgia and all the other now fashionable terms of abuse. Certainly I would
not minimise the danger of the bilateral drugs which we and others must
use during early years becoming a habit; and one of my fears now is that
we may use them to a greater extent than is necessary, and so render our
emergence to health more difficult, out of excessive amour propre in respect
of the terms on which we will accept American help.
But anyway this distinction by time, embodied in the concept of the
' transitional period', is not obviously fallacious. What makes me apprehensive
about your own position, is that I think you are in danger of digging in on
a distinction by content—a distinction between the monetary and the
commercial—which has only a superficial validity, and may prove an
intellectual quicksand. If I really held that commercial bilateralism and
discrimination were the right policy for this country, I should not, I think,
much mind whether they found expression in 'Schachtian' monetary
contraptions or not.
I am sending a copy of this to Eady as an attempt to make more explicit
something which I said to him on Saturday. D.H.R.
22 May 1Q44

From D. H. ROBERTSON, 27 May 1944

MONETARY AND COMMERCIAL BILATERALISM

In your reply to Balfour of Burleigh (Hansard, May 23rd, p. 870 [above,

pp. 22-3]) you suggested that the distinction between these turns on the
latter being entirely voluntary, while the former contains an element of
compulsion.
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 BRETTON WOODS AND AFTER
I cannot see any validity in this. Our war-time Payments Agreements (e.g.
with Argentina) are just as much the outcome of free negotiation between
Governments (or their agents) as our pre-war Trade Agreements (e.g. with
Denmark) were. On the other hand, the Agreement being once made,
Denmark was just as firmly obligated under the Trade Agreement to spend
(part of) her sterling earnings in England as Argentina is under the Payments
Agreement.
I am sorry to be so obstinate about this, but I feel that there is still the
makings of a first-class misunderstanding here, both at home and with the
Americans. D.H.R.
27 May 1Q44

To D. H. ROBERTSON and SIR WILFRID EADY, JI May IQ44

MONETARY AND COMMERCIAL BILATERALISM

I remain more (or worse) than unrepentant. The point is that

currency multilateralism is quite distinct from commercial
multilateralism and that the former does not imply or require
the latter. Indeed, currency multilateralism has been in the past
the normal state of affairs without in fact being accompanied by
commercial multilateralism. The one no more implies the other
in the future than it has done in the past. The fact that those
people who have a strong sympathy for the one are likely to have
a strong sympathy for the other also seems to me to be beside
the point. Moreover there is a large and important group, as I
discovered in my conversations with Members of Parliament,
who are decidedly in favour of currency multilateralism but very
dubious about commercial multilateralism.
I turn next to my reply to Lord Balfour of Burleigh. The
context of this was whether the obligation to avoid blocking
currency and entering into payments agreements prevented one
entering into a voluntary bargain for bulk purchases; such bulk
purchases being perhaps balanced by another bulk purchase in
the opposite direction, though I do not think Lord Balfour was
particularly thinking of that. What I told him was that if we
acquire New Zealand currency, New Zealand would not be free
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 ACTIVITIES 1941-1946
to block our currency against our will. But if we chose, by a
voluntary bargain, to agree to spend that currency on butter,
there was nothing in the Monetary Proposals to stop us. Surely
that is absolutely clear. I do not see the vestige of an opportunity
of misunderstanding with anyone.
That does not mean that if our final decision is against even
a moderate version of commercial multilateralism that that will
not cause trouble and misunderstanding with the Americans. I
am sure it will. I hope Professor Robertson is wrong in believing
that the view which is opposed to any version of commercial
multilateralism now prevails at the official level in the Treasury.
I occupy a middle position and believe that a compromise could
be worked out. But if we are going to adopt views of the
Baloghian kind then indeed there will be a first-class
misunderstanding.
It has been extremely inconvenient to have to discuss the
monetary proposals whilst concealing one's opinions about the
commercial proposals. That is a consequence of the tergivers-
ations of the Cabinet, which we have to submit to but which
cannot affect the logical and actual independence of monetary
and of commercial multilateralism.
KEYNES
JI May 1944

After the Lords discussion, Keynes wrote to White and Pasvolsky setting
out the background.

To H. D. WHITE, 24 May 1944

My dear White,
The Monetary Proposals came up for debate yesterday in the
House of Lords, and I have thought that you might like to get
as early as possible, news of the general reaction. I am enclosing
a copy of Hansard, and also some pages from today's Press-
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 BRETTON WOODS AND AFTER
-Times, Telegraph and the Financial News. There have also been
some very helpful comments elsewhere which possibly Casaday
will be sending to you.
From the first publication, the Press, broadly speaking, has
been extremely satisfactory. But various underground forces of
opposition have been at work and the debate in the House of
Commons was about as disappointing as it could be. Until Mr
Pethick-Lawrence and the Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke
at the end of the debate, the discussion was certainly not one
which did credit to the mother of Parliaments.
The trouble is that there is a small group, an insignificant
minority, who are bent on far-reaching bilateralism. They have
been rather dishonestly raising the bugbear of gold, since the
mere suggestion that our proposals can be regarded in the light
of a return to gold, is enough to make 99 per cent of the people
of this country see red. Taking advantage of this not easily
answered misrepresentation together with the rush of imperial
sentiment which is going over us just now, they have been able
to prevent the serious discussion which one was hoping for,
though as I have said, the response of the Press has been
exceedingly good.
I do not think that all this need be taken too seriously; it is
essentially a superficial and a passing phase. The atmosphere in
the House of Lords yesterday was quite free from it, and my
sense of the atmosphere afterwards, for what it is worth, is that
the tide was turning.
On the other hand, I am afraid it is definitely the case that
the commercial proposals will have to be presented in a very
different form—I do not think that there need be so much
change in the substance—if they are to have a dog's chance of
success in either House.
Meanwhile, we are wondering when the invitation is going
to come from Mr Morgenthau. For God's sake do not take us
to Washington in July, which would surely be a most unfriendly
act. We were hoping, you will remember, that the next round
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 ACTIVITIES 1941-1946
would be here. If that is impossible, then at least you must
arrange for some pleasant resort in the Rocky Mountains, if you
are going to keep your flock in a reasonably good temper.
Yours ever,
[copy initialled] K

To L. PASVOLSKY, 24 May 1944

My dear Pasvolsky,
You may like to have an early report of yesterday's debate
in the House of Lords on the monetary proposals, and I enclose
a copy of Hansard. I have also sent White some press cuttings.
As was the case when the scheme first came out, the Press has
been all that one could wish, fair, objective and sympathetic. But
as you will be aware, the proposals had a pretty rough passage
in the House of Commons.
The background position is that a very small minority, who
are set on extreme bilateralism, have been working extremely
hard to create prejudice by taking advantage of imperial
sentiment now passing over this country and by misrepresenting
the monetary proposals as tantamount to a return to the gold
standard. This last suggestion is not very easily dealt with for
an ignorant public, and the mere suggestion of it is capable of
upsetting almost every single person in this country.
Behind all this, moreover, lies considerable disquiet arising
out of rumours about the commercial talks, no authentic version
of which has yet been published or has even leaked to any
outside circles. This is something on which I should like to have
a long heart-to-heart talk with you. A great deal of the sentiment
and opposition prevailing in this country at the moment is, in
my judgement, superficial and need not be taken too seriously.
All the same, a good deal of attention has to be paid to it. It
is, I am afraid, absolutely certain that if the commercial
proposals were published in this country in their present form,
they would meet with overwhelming opposition in both Houses
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 BRETTON WOODS AND AFTER
of Parliament, and indeed, throughout the Press. There simply
would not be a dog's chance and prejudice would have been
aroused which would take a long time to quieten down. To a
considerable extent, but not entirely, this is, I fancy, a matter
of presentation. The commercial proposals have been drawn up
on those lines which are most suitable from the point of view
of satisfying American public opinion, and unfortunately in this
case, that means lines which are most likely to provoke opposition
in this country. You understand that I am writing this quite
personally and without consulting anyone else. But I am sure
there will have to be a pretty drastic change in presentation and
some changes in substance, if we are to make progress.
The great thing is that you should not misinterpret current
opinion in this country as being in any respect a reaction against
internationalism. It was most striking in the House of Lords
yesterday how all the references to the essential necessity of
international schemes, if any of us are to live happily hereafter,
were warmly applauded and clearly struck the predominant
note.
But there is something else which is not to be overlooked.
This country is immensely exhausted and has made sacrifices
so far as encumbering the future goes, far beyond those of the
other United Nations. The big public is just beginning to
become acutely aware of our post-war troubles but does not see
daylight any more than I do myself. Naturally, therefore, there
is great anxiety that we should not be cutting ourselves off from
conceivable expedients before we really know what expedients
we are likely to need. On the top of that, I think I ought frankly
and add, is a somewhat irritated atmosphere, arising out of the
naggings about lend-lease, and completely untruthful charges
that we are trying to take improper advantages. There also
appears to the general public to be a concerted effort to prevent
us doing anything at all to improve our export trade prospects
after the war, which, whilst it is a luxury to you, is a matter of
life and death to us. In matters of this kind, there is in my
29

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 ACTIVITIES 194I-I946
judgement, a very great defect in the way in which we here handle
ourselves. When any particular incident arises, we do not
immediately react with any vehemence but take the whole thing
most meekly. If we reacted properly, we could get the mischief
out of our system and probably get it out of yours, too, and be
good friends again. But as we do not, these things get under
people's skin, and whilst it is difficult to be at all definite about
it, an irritable general atmosphere is present such as did not exist
a few months ago. Also, of course, everyone is frightfully
wrought up and tense about the coming battle. The ordinary
man's life is upset in many new ways. We are so near to the scene
of events that we all of us feel almost in the battle. Indeed, a
large part of the country is an armed camp and a training area.
It is into this atmosphere that reports arrive that, so far as
our relations with U.S. are concerned, everything has to be
subordinated to a prospective election.
As I have said, all this is not to be taken too seriously, but
it is not to be overlooked. I look forward to having a chance of
going through it all with you more thoroughly. -_
J
Yours ever,
[copy initialled) K

In March 1943 Professor Hayek had sent Keynes an article entitled 'A
Commodity Reserve Currency'. Keynes accepted it for publication in the
issue of the Economic Journal for June—September 1943. He also added a short
note of his own.

From The Economic Journal, June-September ig4j

THE OBJECTIVE OF INTERNATIONAL

PRICE STABILITY
There are two complaints which it has been usual to lodge
against a rigid gold standard as an instrument to secure stable
prices. The first is that it does not provide the appropriate
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 BRETTON WOODS AND AFTER
quantity of money. This is the familiar, old-fashioned criticism
naturally put forward by adherents of the Quantity Theory.
The way to meet it is, obviously, to devise a plan for varying
appropriately the quantity of gold or its equivalent—for
example, the tabular standard of Marshall sixty years ago,
the compensated dollar of Irving Fisher forty years ago, or
the commodity standard of Professor Hayek expounded in the
article printed above.
The peculiar merit of the Clearing Union as a means of
remedying a chronic shortage of international money is that it
operates through the velocity, rather than through the volume,
of circulation. A volume of money is only required to satisfy
hoarding, to provide reserves against contingencies, and to cover
inevitable time lags between buying and spending. If hoarding
is discouraged and if reserves against contingencies are provided
by facultative overdrafts, a very small amount of actually
outstanding credit might be sufficient for clearing between
well-organised central banks. The C.U., if it were fully
successful, would deal with the quantity of international money
by making any significant quantity unnecessary. The system
might be improved, of course, by further increasing the dis-
couragements to hoarding.
On another view, however, each national price level is
primarily determined by the relation of the national wage level
to the national efficiency; or, more generally, by the relation of
money costs to efficiency in terms of the national unit of
currency. And if price levels are determined by money costs,
it follows that whilst an ' appropriate' quantity of money is a
necessary condition of stable prices, it is not a sufficient condition.
For prices can only be stabilised by first stabilising the relation
of money wages (and other costs) to efficiency.
The second (and more modern) complaint against the gold
standard is, therefore, that it attempts to confine the natural
tendency of wages to rise beyond the limits set by the volume
of money, but can only do so by the weapon of deliberately

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 ACTIVITIES 1941-1946
creating unemployment. This weapon the world, after a good
try, has decided to discard. And this complaint may be just as
valid against a new standard which aims at providing the
quantity of money appropriate to stable prices, as it is against
the old gold standard.
In the field of price stabilisation international currency
projects have, therefore, as I conceive it, only a limited objective.
They do not aim at stable prices as such. For international prices
which are stable in terms of unitas or bancor cannot be
translated into stable national price-levels except by the old
gold standard methods of influencing the level of domestic
money costs. And, failing this, there is not much point in an
international price level providing stability in terms of an
international unit which is not reflected in a corresponding
stability of the actual price levels of member countries.
The primary aim of an international currency scheme should
be, therefore, to prevent not only those evils which result from
a chronic shortage of international money due to the draining
of gold into creditor countries but also those which follow from
countries failing to maintain stability of domestic efficiency costs
and moving out of step with one another in their national
wage policies without having at their disposal any means of
orderly adjustment. And if orderly adjustment is allowed, that
is another way of saying that countries may be allowed by the
scheme, which is not the case with the gold standard, to pursue,
if they choose, different wage policies and, therefore, different
price policies.
Thus the more difficult task of an international currency
scheme, which will only be fully solved with the aid of
experience, is to deal with the problem of members getting out
of step in their domestic wage and credit policies. To meet this
it can be provided that countries seriously out of step (whether
too fast or too slow) may be asked in the first instance to
reconsider their policies. But, if necessary (and it will be
necessary, if efficiency wage rates move at materially different
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 BRETTON WOODS AND AFTER
rates), exchange rates will have to be altered so as to reconcile
a particular national policy to the average pace. If the initial
exchange rates are fixed correctly, this is likely to be the only
important disequilibrium for which a change in exchange rates
is the appropriate remedy.
It follows that an international currency scheme can work to
perfection within thefieldof maintaining exchange stability, and
yet prices may move substantially. If wages and prices double
everywhere alike, international exchange equilibrium is undis-
turbed. If efficiency wages in a particular country rise ten per
cent more than the norm, then it is that there is trouble which
needs attention.
The fundamental reason for thus limiting the objectives of
an international currency scheme is the impossibility, or at any
rate the undesirability, of imposing stable price-levels from
without. The error of the gold-standard lay in submitting
national wage-policies to outside dictation. It is wiser to regard
stability (or otherwise) of internal prices as a matter of internal
policy and politics. Commodity standards which try to impose
this from without will break down just as surely as the rigid
gold-standard.
Some countries are likely to be more successful than others
in preserving stability of internal prices and efficiency wages—
and it is the off-setting of that inequality of success which will
provide an international organisation with its worst headaches.
A communist country is in a position to be very successful. Some
people argue that a capitalist country is doomed to failure
because it will be found impossible in conditions of full
employment to prevent a progressive increase of wages. Accord-
ing to this view severe slumps and recurrent periods of
unemployment have been hitherto the only effective means of
holding efficiency wages within a reasonably stable range.
Whether this is so remains to be seen. The more conscious we
are of this problem, the likelier shall we be to surmount it.
KEYNES
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 ACTIVITIES 194II946
Keynes's note brought two comments from Professor Frank Graham of
Princeton University, and Benjamin Graham.7 On receiving these comments,
Keynes wrote to the two authors.

To PROFESSOR F. D. GRAHAM, JI December 1Q43

Dear Professor Graham,

Your letter of October 21st with its enclosures only came into
my hands in the middle of December, and pressure of official
work prevented me from attending to it until the Christmas
holidays. Apologies for this delay, which has been unavoidable.
As you point out, your article and that of your namesake only
overlap to a certain extent. I am, therefore, replying to them
separately. I shall be grateful if you will forward to him the
enclosed letter, of which I have added a copy for your own
retention.
As for your own article, I should be grateful if you would
think it over in the light of what follows.
(1) Your obiter dictum about myself and Dr White, I have no
right to speak for him. But I have spent many hours in his
company discussing these matters and I have never heard him
express the opinion you attribute to him, namely that exchange
rates should be fixed, subject to the rarest and most difficult
exceptions, just as they once used to be, in terms of gold. The
chief matter at issue has been quite a different one, namely
whether member countries should surrender to an international
body the right to decide whether the circumstances are such as
to justify a change, or whether they should retain at least some
measure of discretion in their own hands. I am hopeful that all
this may be cleared up in due course, and meanwhile it would,
I think, darken counsel to suggest that there is here an
irreconcilable difference of opinion.
At any rate, on this point you and I are, I gather, agreed.
7
Frank Dunstonc Graham (1890-1949); economist, Lecturer-Professor, at Princeton Univer-
sity, 1921-49.
Benjamin Graham (b. 1897); economist, Lecturer-Professor, Columbia University,
1928-55; U.C.L.A., 1957.

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 BRETTON WOODS AND AFTER
(2) The passage beginning with the last paragraph on your
p. 28 seems to be fair comment on the assumption (which is
possible) that Hayek did not aim, as I thought he did, at national
currencies stable in terms of a composite commodity. If, on the
other hand, he thought of his commodity standard being in
exactly the same position as that in which gold would be under
the Clearing Union, my objection was misconceived.
In this case the question would arise how far it is worth while
to go beyond using buffer stocks to achieve short-term
stabilisation of individual commodities (which I ardently
advocate) at the cost of the colossal controversy involved in
depriving gold production and gold reserves of their present
usefulness.
You are clearly right that, if a country is free at any time to
alter the value of its currency in terms of the composite
commodity, nothing is imposed on it. I was supposing that
something more than this was intended.
(3) I do not know on what ground you attribute to me the
view stated in the last paragraph of your p. 4. It is not borne
out, quite the contrary, by what I have recently written on this
matter for official circulation.
(4) The same applies to the last paragraph of your p. 5. I do
not know on what your suspicions are founded. It seems to be
a confusion with something else. I was speaking of the ' natural',
not of the 'desirable', tendency of wages to rise. In my
published works I have discussed at great length the balancing
pros and cons of the broad issue. In my recent note I was merely
concerned with the point that wage policy is a domestic political
issue which it is unwise to subject to rigid outside determination.
I elaborate this a little further in my letter to Mr Graham. Your
comment here goes far beyond anything I have actually said in
my note.
(5) The discussion you begin on p. 7 is, in my judgement, the
real issue—and a damned, difficult, disobliging one it is. I called
8
Graham's original note has not survived (Ed).

35

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 ACTIVITIES I94II946
attention to it without attempting, in that brief note, to carry
the discussion very far.
How much otherwise avoidable unemployment do you pro-
pose to bring about in order to keep the Trade Unions in order?
Do you think it will be politically possible when they understand
what you are up to?
My own preliminary view is that other, more reasonable, less
punitive means must be found. And it is my strong conviction
that such efforts will be hopelessly prejudiced if the trade unions
believe that it is an international monetary convention which is
at the bottom of all the trouble. I have had the benefit of hearing
Mr Bevin on this subject!
However, I welcome your contribution to this discussion,
which needs a much franker opening up than it has yet received.
(6) Your p. 8 does not apply equally to an industrial country.
(7) Your p. 9: I should say that this is not 'what commodity
reserve money would do\ but what it would postulate without
the power to do it. That is the other one of my two essential
points. (Here you seem to be attributing to Hayek the same more
drastic intention that I assumed).
Couldn't you clear up the false issues between us and
concentrate more on the essential problem ? There seems to me
to be an opportunity for an exceedingly interesting and helpful
article from you, which I would gladly accept for the Economic
Journal, centring particularly on what you say from p. 6
onwards of the enclosed. .. . .
Yours sincerely,
[copy initialled] K

To BENJAMIN GRAHAM, 31 December

Dear Mr Graham,
The articles of yourself and Professor Graham make me feel
that it was a great mistake for one, who, being occupied on
official work, has no leisure except to write briefly on one
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Other documents randomly have
different content
 Hélène remarqua la première ces évolutions et elle sourit d’un air
moqueur.
—Je crois qu’on vous cherche, dit-elle à Richard.
Celui-ci regarda dans la direction qu’elle indiquait et, reconnaissant
l’amazone, ne put cacher un certain trouble.
—C’est mademoiselle Rojas, répondit-il en rougissant légèrement. C’est
une enfant et nous sommes assez bons amis. Elle est pour moi comme une
petite sœur, ou pour mieux dire, comme un camarade. N’allez pas vous
imaginer...
La Torrebianca qui souriait ironiquement et feignait de ne pas croire à
ses protestations lui dit avec une froideur qui l’attrista:
—Allez la saluer pour qu’elle ne vous importune plus de sa surveillance
et venez me rejoindre.
Après avoir lancé ces mots d’un ton impératif elle mit son cheval au trot
vers l’intérieur des terres, foulant les rudes buissons qui craquaient en se
brisant comme du bois sec.
Aussitôt Celinda cessa d’évoluer dans le lointain et elle courut ventre à
terre au-devant de Richard. Quand elle fut près de lui, elle le menaça du
doigt en imitant l’expression sévère d’un précepteur qui réprimande un
élève. Puis elle dit avec une gravité comique:
—Ne vous ai-je pas dit plus de cent fois, mister Watson, que je ne
voulais pas vous voir avec cette femme-là? Je passe maintenant des jours
entiers à courir la campagne inutilement et si j’arrive enfin à rencontrer
monsieur, je le trouve toujours en mauvaise compagnie.
Mais Watson n’était plus le même homme; il ne rit pas de cette feinte
colère. Au contraire, il parut froissé par le ton plaisant qu’elle avait pris, et
il répondit sèchement:
—Je puis aller avec qui il me plaît, mademoiselle. Il n’existe entre nous
qu’une bonne amitié malgré ce que trop de gens supposent à tort. Vous
n’êtes pas ma fiancée et je n’ai aucune raison de rompre avec mes relations
pour obéir à vos caprices.
Celinda demeura stupéfaite et Richard en profita pour s’éloigner en
saluant sèchement, dans la direction qu’avait prise Hélène.
La fille de Rojas se rendit compte que l’Américain s’échappait
réellement; elle fit un geste de colère, tout en lui criant des phrases
suppliantes:
—Ne partez pas, gringuito. Ecoutez-moi, don Ricardo; ne vous fâchez
pas... J’ai dit cela pour rire comme les autres fois.
Watson feignait de ne pas entendre et continuait sa course; elle saisit
alors le lasso qui pendait à l’arçon de sa selle, le déroula pour le lancer sur
le fugitif.
—Venez ici, désobéissant.
Avec une précision parfaite, le lasso tomba sur Richard et l’emprisonna,
mais au moment où Celinda commençait à tirer sur la corde, l’ingénieur prit
dans sa poche un canif et trancha la boucle. Son mouvement fut si rapide
que la jeune fille, ne rencontrant brusquement aucune résistance, faillit
tomber de cheval.
Watson se débarrassa du tronçon de corde qui entourait ses épaules et le
jeta à terre sans se retourner. La fille de Rojas continua à ramener son lasso,
qui traînait mollement sur le sol.
Quand elle eut dans la main le bout de la corde elle contempla avec
tristesse l’extrémité que le canif avait tranchée. Des larmes lui troublèrent
les yeux. Puis, pâle de colère, elle regarda les dunes derrière lesquelles
l’Américain avait disparu.
—Que le diable t’emporte, gringo ingrat! je ne veux plus te voir... Je ne
te lancerai plus mon lasso et si un jour tu veux me retrouver, c’est toi qui
seras obligé de me lancer le tien... si tu en es capable!
Et, sans pouvoir résister davantage à la cruauté de sa déconvenue,
Celinda cacha son visage dans ses mains, pour que ces champs sablonneux,
ce fleuve impétueux et solitaire, qui tant de fois l’avaient vue rire, ne
pussent aujourd’hui la voir pleurer.
 XII
Le jour de la grande surprise préparée par Canterac arriva. Les ouvriers
dirigés par Moreno plantèrent les derniers arbres dans la plaine voisine du
fleuve.
Des groupes de curieux admiraient de loin le bois improvisé. De Fort
Sarmiento et même de la capitale du Neuquen des gens arrivèrent, attirés
par cette fête d’un nouveau genre. Quelques travailleurs tendaient d’un
arbre à l’autre des guirlandes de feuillages et fixaient des faisceaux de
drapeaux.
Fritérini, élevé au grade de maître d’hôtel, avait tiré du fond de sa valise
un frac quelque peu rongé de mites, souvenir du temps où il servait comme
garçon de restaurant dans les hôtels d’Europe et de Buenos-Ayres. Soucieux
de maintenir intacts son plastron rigide et sa cravate blanche, il donnait des
ordres à un groupe de métisses du bar transformées en servantes qui
préparaient des tables pour la fête du soir.
Don Antonio El Gallego avait lui aussi subi une grande transformation
extérieure. Il était vêtu de noir et une grosse chaîne d’or traversait son gilet
d’une poche à l’autre. Il comptait au nombre des invités, car, représentant
du haut commerce, il avait bien le droit d’être compris parmi les notables de
la Presa; mais comme on avait commandé la collation à son établissement,
il avait jugé bon de se transporter sur les lieux de la fête dès les premières
heures de l’après-midi, pour s’assurer que tous les préparatifs se déroulaient
avec régularité.
Parmi les badauds, que maintenait une clôture de fils barbelés, se
tenaient quelques gauchos, dont le fameux Manos Duras. Après la bataille
du cabaret il était revenu tranquillement au camp pour s’expliquer. Il
reconnaissait que certains des provocateurs étaient ses amis, mais ils étaient
tous majeurs et il n’avait pas à répondre de leurs actes comme un père. Il se
trouvait loin de la Presa quand le choc s’était produit; pourquoi voulait-on
le compromettre dans une affaire où il n’avait pris aucune part?
Le commissaire dut se contenter de cette justification; le patron du bar
l’accepta également, car il aimait mieux avoir Manos Duras pour ami que
pour ennemi; Manos Duras était donc présent et il contemplait avec une
attention quelque peu ironique les préparatifs de la fête. Les autres gauchos,
silencieux comme lui, semblaient rire intérieurement à la pensée du travail
accompli. Les gringos transportaient les arbres de l’endroit où Dieu les
avait fait naître; et tout cela pour une femme!
Les gens du peuple se montraient plus hardis dans leurs jugements et ne
se gênaient pas pour les exprimer bien haut. Des femmes, parmi les mieux
vêtues, s’attaquaient à la marquise.
—La garce! qu’est-ce que les hommes ne feraient pas pour elle!
Elles comptaient les cadeaux de l’entrepreneur Pirovani, si avare
pourtant et si dur pour les ouvriers.
Par chaque train arrivaient de Buenos-Ayres ou de Bahia Blanca à
l’adresse de la marquise des paquets payés par l’Italien. Et de plus, une
charrette chargée d’un tonneau ne cessait d’apporter de l’eau du fleuve à la
maison de Pirovani. Cette grande dame avait besoin d’un bain toutes les
vingt-quatre heures.
—Tout cela n’est pas naturel; elle doit avoir dans la peau quelque chose
qui ne veut pas sortir, affirmaient sentencieusement quelques femmes.
Toutes, forcées d’aller plusieurs fois par jour de leur demeure à la rivière
avec une cruche sur le dos, considéraient cette charrette et ce tonneau
comme un luxe inouï. Un bain chaque jour, dans ce pays où le moindre
souffle de vent soulève la terre en colonnes si épaisses et si lourdes qu’il
fallait se courber pour résister à leur poussée! Beaucoup d’entre elles
gardaient encore dans leur chevelure ou dans les doublures de leurs robes la
poussière des semaines précédentes, et cette folle dépense d’eau les
indignait comme une injustice sociale.
Une femme, pour se consoler, lança une allusion méchante à l’ingénieur
Torrebianca:
—Il est capable de venir ce soir avec les bons amis de sa femme!... Pas
possible qu’un homme soit aussi aveugle. Certainement ils s’entendent.
Celinda, à cheval, passa lentement parmi les groupes et regarda d’un air
hostile le parc improvisé. Puis elle marcha vers le village pour ne pas
entendre les commentaires scabreux des femmes.
Gonzalez, sans cesser de surveiller la mise en place des tables, tenait un
discours à quelques-uns de ses clients en leur montrant le fleuve. Il avait
trouvé le moment propice pour étaler avec une doctorale gravité les
connaissances qu’il avait glanées dans les propos de son compatriote
Robledo.
Les Indiens avaient appelé ce fleuve Rio Negro, «la rivière noire», à
cause des dures peines qu’ils éprouvaient à remonter son courant rapide.
Les conquérants le nommaient «Fleuve des Saules». Aujourd’hui encore les
saules abondaient sur ses rives, et les troncs que roulait le courant
constituaient pour les barques un danger constant.
Il était resté inexploré pendant des siècles, puis un missionnaire anglais
avait fait une tentative pour donner à son pays la priorité dans cette
importante région de passage.
C’est alors que les Espagnols, qui avaient eu bien des choses à faire
après s’être emparés de la plus grande partie de l’Amérique, jugèrent
nécessaire l’exploration du fleuve.
L’enseigne Villarino entreprit cette expédition obscure et difficile dans le
dernier tiers du xviiie siècle; don Manuel l’appelle le dernier représentant de
l’héroïque génie des découvreurs espagnols.
Il partit de Carmen de Patagones avec soixante hommes d’équipage, sur
quatre lourdes barques mal faites pour un tel voyage. Il s’enfonça avec cette
poignée de marins dans un pays complètement inconnu où vivaient les
Indiens les plus irréductibles et les plus féroces, qui poussaient parfois leurs
incursions jusqu’aux abords de Buenos-Ayres.
Pendant des centaines de lieues les quatre barques naviguèrent entre ces
rives où les guettaient les terribles Aucas.
—Nous qui connaissons le courant du fleuve nous pouvons comprendre
les difficultés de cette expédition vers l’amont, et sur barque à voile. Ils
emportaient quinze chevaux qui devaient haler les bateaux dans les
passages difficiles. Quatre fois les ouragans brisèrent la mâture des
embarcations. L’expédition dura de longs mois et, faute de guides du pays,
elle s’égara souvent dans les affluents et dut revenir ensuite en arrière... Ils
cherchaient cette mer que les Indiens affirmaient avoir vue de leur yeux et
qui n’est autre que le lac Nahuel Huapi. Il communique en effet avec le Rio
Negro par le bras du Limay. Eh bien! aujourd’hui où nous possédons des
embarcations cent fois meilleures, personne n’a jamais voulu recommencer
le voyage de l’enseigne Villarino.
Pendant que Gonzalez continuait son patriotique discours les groupes
devenaient plus importants. Un orchestre composé de quelques Italiens
venus de Neuquen se mit à déchirer l’air de la stridence de ses cuivres.
Immédiatement quelques couples commencèrent à danser. Don Antonio
s’indigna de ce manque de respect à l’égard de l’organisateur de la fête.
—Ne les laisse pas danser avant l’arrivée de la marquise, dit-il à
Fritérini, la cérémonie est en son honneur et monsieur de Canterac sera
certainement mécontent si elle commence avant l’heure.
Mais les musiciens et les danseurs ne tinrent aucun compte de ses
scrupules et le bal continua.
Cependant, Hélène, brillamment parée pour la fête, se trouvait encore
dans le salon de sa maison. Son visage était sombre et irrité.
—Cela n’arrive qu’à moi, pensait-elle. Fallait-il que cette nouvelle nous
parvînt justement aujourd’hui?... Allez donc ne pas croire aux caprices de la
fatalité!
Torrebianca avait reçu le matin une lettre d’Italie que lui expédiait son
notaire: il l’avait tendue à Hélène, le visage bouleversé.
«Depuis votre départ pour l’Amérique la santé de madame la marquise
était si chancelante que nous attendions d’un moment à l’autre une issue
fatale. Elle est morte en pensant à vous. Le dernier mot qu’elle eut la force
de prononcer dans son agonie fut votre nom. Je vous envoie ci-joint
quelques renseignements sur l’héritage qui malheureusement n’est pas....»
Hélène s’arrêta de lire pour regarder son mari d’un air interrogateur;
mais il demeurait la tête en avant, anéanti par cette nouvelle. Elle hésita
avant de parler, puis comme le temps passait sans que son mari rompît le
silence, elle dit lentement:
—Je suppose que cet événement qui n’a rien d’imprévu, puisque souvent
tu m’avais fait part de tes craintes, ne nous empêchera pas d’assister à la
fête.
Torrebianca leva les yeux et la regarda, stupéfait...
—Que dis-tu? Songe que celle qui vient de mourir était ma mère.
Elle feignit la confusion et répondit doucement:
—La mort de cette pauvre dame me fait beaucoup de peine. C’était ta
mère et cela me suffit pour que je la pleure... mais songe aussi que je ne l’ai
jamais vue et qu’elle-même ne m’a connue que par mes portraits. Reprends
tes esprits et sois un peu logique. A cause d’un événement malheureux qui
s’est passé à l’autre bout de la terre, nous ne pouvons pas nous dispenser
d’assister à une fête qui a occasionné des frais énormes à celui qui l’a
organisée.
Elle s’approcha de son mari et lui dit d’une voix insinuante tout en lui
caressant de la main le visage:
—Il faut savoir vivre. Nul ne connaît ton malheur? Imagine-toi que la
lettre n’est pas arrivée aujourd’hui et que tu ne peux pas la recevoir avant le
courrier d’après-demain. C’est entendu, n’est-ce pas? Tu ignores la nouvelle
et tu viens avec moi, ce soir. A quoi bon y penser maintenant? Tu as bien le
temps de méditer sur ce triste événement.
Le marquis secoua la tête. Puis il porta une main à ses yeux et, appuyant
son coude sur ses genoux il gémit d’une voix sourde:
—C’était ma mère... ma pauvre mère qui m’aimait tant!
Il y eut un long silence. Torrebianca se réfugia dans une pièce voisine
comme pour dérober à sa femme son chagrin. Hélène, maussade et irritée,
l’entendait gémir et marcher derrière la porte.
Le temps passait. Elle regarda la pendule: trois heures. Il fallait prendre
une décision. Elle eut une moue cruelle et haussa les épaules. Puis elle
marcha vers la porte par où son mari avait disparu:
—Reste ici, Frédéric, ne t’occupe pas de moi. J’irai seule et je trouverai
un prétexte pour t’excuser. A bientôt, mon chéri. Crois bien que si je te
laisse c’est uniquement pour ne pas peiner nos amis. Ah! quel supplice que
les exigences du monde.
Sa voix avait des inflexions tendres, mais un rictus de rage tordait les
coins de sa bouche. Elle mit son chapeau et sortit. Du haut du perron elle
put voir la rue complètement déserte.
Tous les habitants du village se trouvaient autour du parc improvisé.
Canterac et l’entrepreneur chacun de leur côté avaient décidé que ce jour
serait férié et donné congé à leurs hommes.
Devant la maison attendait une petite voiture à quatre roues; un métis
dormait sur le siège, gardant entre ses lèvres épaisses et bleues un cigare de
Paraguay, tandis qu’un essaim de mouches bourdonnaient autour de son
visage en sueur.
Hélène pensa à ses admirateurs qui sans doute guettaient avec
impatience son arrivée. Ils s’étaient abstenus de venir la chercher parce que
la veille elle avait exprimé le désir de se rendre à la fête seulement
accompagnée de son époux. Une femme doit éviter de donner prise à la
calomnie.
Elle s’écartait de la maison pour gagner la voiture, quand elle entendit un
galop de cheval. Un cavalier venait de surgir d’une ruelle voisine. C’était la
Fleur du Rio Negro.
Le mystérieux instinct de la haine fit qu’Hélène devina sa présence avant
de l’avoir aperçue. Sans attendre que le cheval fût arrêté l’intrépide
amazone se laissa glisser de sa selle. Puis elle s’avança avec la démarche
lourde du cavalier qu’étonne encore le contact du sol:
—Madame, un mot seulement.
Et elle se plaça entre la marquise et le marchepied de la voiture pour lui
barrer le passage.
Malgré sa fierté, Hélène fut troublée par le regard dur de la jeune fille.
Cependant elle eut un mouvement hautain qui demandait «Est-ce bien moi
que vous cherchez.» Celinda comprit et répondit d’un geste affirmatif.
La marquise, toujours muette, lui fit signe de parler, et la fille de Rojas
dit d’un ton agressif:
—Vous n’avez donc pas assez de tous ces hommes que vous rendez
fous? Il vous faut encore voler ceux qui sont à d’autres femmes?
Hélène la regarda des pieds à la tête sans répondre un mot. Elle essayait
de l’impressionner avec des airs de supériorité...
—Je ne vous connais pas, petite! dit-elle enfin. J’ai idée, d’ailleurs, qu’il
y a entre nous une trop grande différence de classe et d’éducation; nous en
resterons là, s’il vous plaît.
Elle essaya de l’écarter et de passer, mais Celinda, irritée par cette
réponse méprisante, leva le rebenque qu’elle tenait dans sa main droite.
—Eh! diable en jupons!
Elle abattit son fouet sur le visage d’Hélène, mais l’autre se mit aussitôt
en défense et saisit le bras de son adversaire. Une intense pâleur se répandit
sur son visage et ses yeux, agrandis par la surprise, lancèrent un éclair
fauve. Puis elle dit d’une voix rauque:
—Bien, petite, ne vous mettez pas en peine. Je compte ce coup comme
reçu. C’est un cadeau que l’on n’oublie pas; je m’en souviendrai quand je le
jugerai bon.
 Elle lâcha le bras de Celinda; celle-ci, déjà calmée, le laissa retomber,
comme honteuse de son agression.
Hélène profita de ce mouvement d’hésitation pour sauter dans la voiture.
Elle toucha le conducteur à l’épaule. Le métis était resté endormi jusqu’à ce
moment, le cigare à la bouche, et ne s’était pas rendu compte de ce qui
s’était passé à côté de son véhicule.
A peine sortie du village, Hélène aperçut au loin le parc improvisé et la
multitude qui s’agitait tout autour.
Un cavalier, qui semblait revenir du lieu de la fête, la croisa au trot et ôta
son chapeau pour la saluer. Hélène reconnut Manos Duras et sourit
machinalement en réponse à son salut respectueux. Puis, sans bien se rendre
compte de ce qu’elle faisait, elle l’appela de la main. Le gaucho fit faire
demi-tour à son cheval, s’approcha de la voiture et se mit à marcher à
hauteur des roues.
—Comment allez-vous, Madame la Marquise? Pourquoi êtes-vous si
pâle?
Hélène fit un effort pour retrouver son calme.
Sans doute les traces de l’émotion qu’elle venait d’éprouver étaient
encore visibles sur son visage; il fallait qu’elle arrivât à la fête tranquille et
souriante, et que nul ne pût deviner l’outrage qu’elle avait reçu.
Comme pour mettre fin promptement à son entretien avec Manos Duras,
elle lui demanda avec une gaieté forcée:
—Vous m’avez bien dit un jour que vous aviez beaucoup d’estime pour
moi et que vous seriez toujours prêt à exécuter un de mes ordres, quelque
terrible qu’il fût?
Manos Duras salua, la main à son chapeau, et sourit en découvrant ses
dents de loup.
—Ordonnez, Madame. Désirez-vous que je tue quelqu’un?
Tandis qu’il parlait, le désir brillait dans ses yeux. Elle eut un geste
d’effroi hypocrite.
—Tuer? Oh! non... quelle horreur! Pour qui me prenez-vous?... Le
service que j’aurai l’occasion de vous demander peut-être sera bien plus
agréable pour vous... Nous en reparlerons.
Elle eut peur que le gaucho ne tardât à prendre congé, et d’un geste
énergique elle lui ordonna de se retirer. Elle était arrivée à proximité du lieu
de la fête et il était peu convenable que, venant sans son mari, elle y arrivât
avec un tel compagnon.
Manos Duras retint son cheval et la voiture s’éloigna. Pendant quelques
minutes il suivit des yeux cette femme, la plus extraordinaire qu’il eût
jamais rencontrée; quand il l’eut perdue de vue, son regard de dogue soumis
redevint dur et agressif.
Les invités pénétraient peu à peu dans le parc artificiel, entourés de la
curiosité de la foule que le commissaire et ses quatre hommes, fort affairés,
maintenaient derrière la clôture de fil de fer. Ces invités étaient des
commerçants espagnols ou italiens établis dans les villages voisins ou venus
de l’île lointaine de Choele-Choel, le dernier point où atteignent les rares
bateaux capables de remonter le Rio Negro. Les contremaîtres et les
mécaniciens du chantier se présentaient aussi avec leurs femmes qui avaient
déballé leurs costumes de fête, réservés jusqu’ici aux brefs séjours qu’elles
allaient faire à Bahia Blanca ou à Buenos-Ayres.
Robledo parcourait les courtes allées du parc et admirait ironiquement
l’absurde création de Canterac. Moreno lui faisait noter avec un certain
orgueil tous les détails de l’œuvre qu’il avait dirigée.
—Ce qu’il y a de plus remarquable, c’est une espèce de berceau ou
plutôt de sanctuaire de verdure qui se trouve au bout de la futaie. Le
capitaine tentera certainement d’y amener la marquise. Mais elle est fine et
elle saura lui glisser dans les mains.
Il clignait malicieusement de l’œil en parlant des projets de Canterac,
puis il reprenait sa gravité pour affirmer la parfaite vertu de la marquise qui
n’était pas la femme que beaucoup de gens croyaient.
Il se préparait à montrer à l’Espagnol le fameux «sanctuaire» de verdure,
mais, soudain, sans transition, il l’abandonna en murmurant une excuse et
s’élança vers l’entrée du parc. Hélène venait d’arriver. Les autres soupirants
imitèrent Moreno et coururent à sa rencontre; mais après avoir salué les
trois hommes, elle montra nettement sa préférence pour Watson, qui lui
aussi était allé au-devant d’elle. Elle causa avec les autres, mais ses yeux
caressants restaient fixés sur Richard. Robledo, qui de loin examinait le
groupe, ne manqua pas de s’en apercevoir.
Contrarié par ce qu’il venait de découvrir, il s’approcha pour saluer la
Torrebianca. Puis, à voix basse, il pria Watson de le suivre; mais le jeune
homme faisait semblant de ne pas comprendre. Tout gonflé de son
importance en tant qu’organisateur de la fête, l’ingénieur français
s’interposa enfin entre Hélène et les invités et lui offrit son bras pour lui
montrer toutes les beautés de sa création forestière.
Robledo en profita pour toucher du doigt le dos de Watson et pour
l’inviter à l’accompagner dans sa promenade sous la futaie. Dès qu’ils
furent seuls, l’Espagnol lui montra la femme qui s’éloignait appuyée au
bras de Canterac et lui dit avec bonté:
—Méfiez-vous, Richard. Je crois que cette Circé ne demande qu’à vous
enchanter à votre tour.
Watson, qui, jusqu’à cette heure, l’avait toujours écouté avec déférence,
le regarda cette fois d’un air de hauteur.
—Je suis assez grand pour aller tout seul, répondit-il sèchement, et
quand à vos conseils, vous me les donnerez quand je vous les demanderai.
Puis il tourna le dos en murmurant des mots inintelligibles et s’en fut à la
recherche d’Hélène.
L’Espagnol demeura d’abord stupéfait de la brusque réponse de son
associé; puis il s’indigna.
—Cette femme! pensa-t-il. Elle va encore m’enlever mon meilleur ami!
A ce moment commençait la partie de la fête qui, pour beaucoup des
invités, était la plus intéressante. Fritérini donnait des ordres à pleine voix
aux métisses chargées du service. Sur les tables, faites de planches
supportées par des chevalets et couvertes de draps de lit fraîchement lavés
en guise de nappes, apparurent les victuailles les plus riches et les plus
extraordinaires qu’avaient pu fournir le magasin du Gallego et tous les
autres cabarets ou auberges des colonies proches de Rio Negro. C’étaient
des mets européens ou nord-américains qui gardaient un goût de renfermé,
un parfum d’étain et de fer blanc: porc de Chicago, saucisses de Francfort,
foie gras, sardines de Galice, piments de la Rioja, olives de Séville, le tout
venu, à travers l’océan, dans des boîtes métalliques ou des petits barils de
bois.
Le choix des boissons était extraordinaire. Seuls quelques gringos venus
des pays dits latins recherchaient les bouteilles de vin rouge. Les autres, en
particulier les fils du pays, tenaient pour une boisson grossière les liquides
couleur de sang, et la transparence des vins blancs leur était signe
d’aristocratie.
 Les bouchons de champagne ne cessaient de sauter à grand bruit. On
buvait le vin mousseux comme on eût bu de l’eau du fleuve.
—C’est cher en Europe, disait un Russe aux longs cheveux graisseux,
mais ici, avec la différence du change!...
Le méticuleux Moreno s’inquiétait de la soif grandissante des invités. Il
faisait des signes mystérieux à l’enthousiaste Fritérini et lui glissait au
passage quelques mots dans l’oreille pour lui recommander l’économie et la
prudence.
—Pourvu que les pesos de Canterac y suffisent! pensait-il. Je commence
à croire que nous n’aurons pas assez d’argent pour tout payer.
Cependant l’ingénieur français s’enfonçait avec Hélène au milieu des
arbres et s’arrêtait parfois pour lui signaler les plus beaux.
—Ce parc n’est pas celui de Versailles, belle marquise, disait-il en
imitant les façons galantes des siècles passés. Mais dans sa médiocrité, il
vous exprime du moins le désir que j’ai eu de vous être agréable.
Pirovani, feignant la distraction, marchait derrière lui à quelque distance.
Il ne pouvait cacher le dépit que lui causait cette fête imaginée par son rival.
Il reconnaissait qu’il n’aurait pu inventer rien de semblable. Ah!
l’instruction était bien utile!
En s’avançant dans le bois artificiel il donnait à la dérobée de rudes
poussées aux arbres les plus proches pour essayer de les faire tomber. Mais
ses mauvais desseins échouaient. Tous les arbres restaient debout. Cet
imbécile de Moreno avait bien fait les choses quand il avait prêté son
concours à Canterac.
Ses extrémités se glacèrent et tout son sang lui reflua au cœur lorsqu’il
vit le couple pénétrer dans un épais berceau de feuillage, à l’extrémité d’une
avenue. C’était le fameux sanctuaire dont Moreno avait parlé.
—La reine peut prendre place sur son trône, dit Canterac. Et il indiqua à
Hélène un banc rustique surmonté d’une espèce de dais fait de guirlandes
de verdure et de fleurs de papier.
Enhardi par la solitude, le Français exprima son amour en termes
véhéments, et se dit prêt à tout sacrifier pour Hélène. Il lui avait souvent fait
les mêmes aveux, mais cette fois ils étaient seuls et la fête semblait avoir
rendu sa passion plus agressive.
 Elle était assise sur le banc rustique, près de l’ingénieur, et elle montrait
quelque inquiétude, sans perdre pour cela son sourire de tentatrice. Canterac
lui saisit les deux mains et voulut aussitôt la baiser sur la bouche. Mais la
Torrebianca, qui s’attendait à l’attaque, sut se défendre à temps et fit effort
pour le repousser.
Ils luttaient de la sorte quand l’entrepreneur parut à l’entrée du cabinet.
Aucun des deux ne le vit. Canterac s’obstinait à vouloir embrasser Hélène
et, oubliant ses minauderies de coquette, elle le repoussait avec violence.
—C’est de la déloyauté, dit-elle d’une voix haletante. Je dois être
décoiffée. Vous allez abîmer mon chapeau... Restez tranquille! Si vous
persistez, je vous quitte.
Mais elle fut enfin réduite à se défendre si énergiquement que Pirovani
crut le moment venu d’intervenir et pénétra résolument à l’intérieur du
cabinet. L’ingénieur, en l’apercevant, abandonna Hélène et se leva, tandis
qu’elle réparait le désordre de sa coiffure et de ses vêtements. Les deux
hommes se regardèrent fixement; l’Italien se sentit contraint de prendre la
parole.
—Vous êtes bien pressé, dit-il ironiquement, de vous faire payer les frais
de la fête.
Canterac fut si étonné d’entendre un simple entrepreneur l’insulter à cet
endroit même, dans un parc somptueux né de son esprit, qu’il resta un
instant sans pouvoir parler. Puis sa colère d’homme autoritaire éclata,
fulgurante et froide.
—De quel droit m’adressez-vous la parole? J’aurais dû m’abstenir
d’inviter chez moi un émigrant sans éducation, qui a fait sa fortune on ne
sait trop comment.
Furieux d’être ainsi outragé en présence d’Hélène, Pirovani fut pris
d’une rage folle. La violence de son tempérament sanguin le poussait à
l’action immédiate; pour toute réponse il se jeta sur l’ingénieur et le gifla.
Immédiatement les deux hommes s’empoignèrent et se mirent à lutter à
bras-le-corps, tandis que la Torrebianca, perdant la tête, poussait des cris
d’épouvante.
Les invités accoururent, et les premiers à se présenter furent Robledo et
Watson, chacun de leur côté.
L’ingénieur et l’entrepreneur, qui se roulaient sur le sol, étroitement
enlacés, avaient en grande partie détruit le sanctuaire de verdure.
 Pirovani, plus puissant et plus vigoureux que Canterac, l’étouffait de son
poids. La colère lui faisait oublier tout ce qu’il savait d’espagnol et il
blasphémait en italien, invoquant la Vierge et la plupart des habitants du
ciel. Il priait à grands cris ceux qui tentaient de s’interposer de le laisser
manger le foie de son rival. En quelques secondes, il était revenu aux
années de sa jeunesse, où il se battait avec ses compagnons de misère dans
quelque trattoria du port de Gênes.
En les tiraillant avec énergie et en distribuant quelques bons coups de
poing, des hommes de bonne volonté parvinrent à séparer leurs deux chefs.
Watson, sans s’occuper des combattants, s’était élancé vers la marquise et
s’était placé devant elle comme pour la défendre d’un péril.
Robledo regarda les deux adversaires. Contenus chacun par un groupe
d’hommes ils s’insultaient de loin et bavaient des injures, les yeux injectés
de sang. Tous deux avaient brusquement oublié l’espagnol et ils
bredouillaient les mots les plus sales de leurs langues respectives.
Puis il contempla la marquise de Torrebianca qui, soutenue par Watson,
gémissait comme une fillette.
«Il ne manquait plus que ce scandale! se dit-il. J’ai peur que cette femme
ne soit bientôt cause de la mort d’un homme.»
 XIII
Watson et Robledo, préoccupés par l’événement qui s’était produit
quelques heures auparavant dans le parc inventé par Canterac, terminèrent
silencieusement leur repas.
Un obstacle infranchissable semblait s’être élevé entre eux. Watson
montrait un visage assombri et évitait de regarder Robledo qui levait de
temps en temps les yeux sur son associé avec un sourire plein d’amertume.
Il pensait à Hélène, ce cruel despote, qui peut-être avait excité Richard
contre lui.
Le jeune homme quitta la table, prit congé en murmurant quelques mots
indistincts et saisit son chapeau pour sortir.
—Il va la voir, se dit l’Espagnol; loin d’elle, il ne vit plus.
Dans la rue centrale, Watson rencontra des groupes qui discutaient avec
ardeur. Les rectangles rouges que projetaient sur le sol les portes du bar
étaient souvent voilés par l’ombre de gens qui entraient ou sortaient.
Il devina que tous commentaient l’événement du jour en prenant fait et
cause soit pour l’ingénieur, soit pour l’entrepreneur.
Quand il arriva chez Hélène, Sébastienne le reçut au sommet du perron.
La métisse elle-même était préoccupée par les incidents de l’après-midi.
Elle regarda Richard avec sévérité; sans doute, elle pensait à Celinda.
«Ah! les hommes! Ce gringo qu’elle avait pris pour un bon garçon, il était
tout aussi vicieux que les autres.»
Le jeune homme passa sans remarquer ce regard et trouva dans la grande
salle Hélène qui semblait l’attendre.
Il voulut prendre un fauteuil, mais la marquise s’y opposa.
—Non, ici, à côté de moi. Personne ainsi ne pourra nous entendre.
Et elle l’obligea à s’asseoir sur le sofa, tout près d’elle.
Son visage était pâle, son regard dur et elle semblait encore sous
l’impression désagréable des événements récents. La rixe entre Pirovani et
Canterac était passée dans sa mémoire au second plan, mais l’image de
Celinda, le fouet levé, la tourmentait sans cesse, et elle en frémissait encore
de rage. Elle oublia sa rancune en voyant arriver ponctuellement Richard
qu’elle avait prié de venir passer la soirée chez elle. Elle remarqua que
Watson regardait avec inquiétude les portes de la salle et crut devoir le
rassurer.
—Personne ne viendra. Mon mari est dans sa chambre, accablé par une
mauvaise nouvelle qu’il a reçue d’Europe... un malheur de famille que nous
attendions depuis quelque temps et qui ne me touche pas beaucoup moi-
même.
Puis, changeant de ton et de visage, elle continua:
—Combien je vous remercie d’être venu!... Je tremblais à la pensée qu’il
me faudrait passer seule les longues heures de la soirée. Je m’ennuie tant
ici!... C’est pour cela qu’aujourd’hui, en nous séparant, je vous ai supplié de
ne pas m’abandonner...
Et en prononçant ces mots elle prit la main de Watson qu’elle contempla
de ses yeux caressants.
Le jeune homme se sentit flatté par ce regard dans sa vanité masculine,
mais immédiatement le souvenir des incidents de l’après-midi lui revint à la
mémoire.
—Pourquoi ces deux hommes se sont-ils battus? Est-ce pour vous?
Elle hésita d’abord, puis, détournant les yeux, elle répondit avec
détachement.
—Peut-être; mais je les méprise tous les deux. Vous seul existez pour
moi, Richard.
Elle lui posa les mains sur les épaules et approcha de lui son visage; son
corps souple s’étira avec une ondulation féline.
—Il me semble, murmura-t-elle, que nous sommes près de franchir les
bornes d’une tranquille amitié. Vous ne savez pas comme vous
m’intéressez.
Ils se sentaient enhardis par la solitude et par la force de leur désir. En
quelques minutes ils allaient parcourir des étapes que dans son inexpérience
le jeune homme s’attendait à voir durer fort longtemps. Hélène pensait à la
jeune amazone qui avait tenté de la frapper. Outragée dans son orgueil, elle
voulait une prompte vengeance, et cyniquement, elle se disait avec un rire
contenu qui faisait briller son regard:
—Puisque tu es jalouse, ce ne sera pas sans motif. Je te rendrai bien ton
coup de cravache.
 De plus, elle songeait à ces deux hommes qui s’étaient colletés devant
elle, sans qu’elle éprouvât aucune émotion véritable et, avec l’étrange
logique d’un cerveau désordonné, elle arrêtait que le plus sûr moyen de
rétablir la paix entre eux était de se donner à un troisième, plus digne
qu’elle le distinguât.
Watson, de son côté, la trouvait plus belle et plus désirable depuis que
deux hommes avaient essayé de se tuer pour elle. Un sentiment d’orgueil
viril, de vanité sexuelle, s’unissait aux émotions qu’excitaient en lui les
paroles de la Torrebianca et le contact de son corps.
Les deux mains qu’elle avait appuyées sur les épaules de Richard se
rejoignaient lentement et le jeune homme se sentit emprisonné entre deux
bras adorables. Quelque chose se réveilla dans son âme, comme une fleur
mourante qui renaît. Il crut voir le noble et triste visage de l’ingénieur
Torrebianca et soudain il voulut rompre le charme, se rejeter en arrière et
repousser Hélène... Il ne pouvait trahir son compagnon. Il ne pouvait
commettre cet acte honteux sous le toit même de cet homme à peine séparé
de lui par quelques cloisons. Puis il se vit lui-même marchant joyeusement
dans la campagne, aux côtés de Celinda. Encore une fois il voulut secouer
la tête et ses paupières battirent avec angoisse; alors même qu’il tentait de
se déprendre, il était certain d’en être incapable.
«Pauvre petite Fleur du Rio Negro!» pensa-t-il.
Les bras qui entouraient son cou se resserrèrent doucement et attirèrent
peu à peu sa tête vers le visage féminin qui lui tendait ses lèvres avides et
hardies. Leurs bouches s’unirent enfin et Richard crut que ce baiser n’aurait
plus de fin.
Il était ivre comme un homme qui, trouvant toutes portes ouvertes,
s’avance de salle en salle dans un palais merveilleux, et découvre chaque
fois une chambre plus admirable et des perspectives plus éblouissantes au
delà. Au moment où il s’imaginait que cette bouche, il l’avait possédée
toute, les lèvres s’entr’ouvraient en un bâillement de fauve et le laissaient
pénétrer plus avant pour lui révéler l’énervante volupté de contacts
inconnus. Il croyait avoir épuisé toutes les sensations que recelaient en elles
ces deux valves de chair humide et douce, et de nouveaux frissons de plaisir
lui parcouraient le dos.
A ce moment, il eut la même pensée que tous les naïfs habitants de la
Presa qui couraient affolés dans le sillage de la Torrebianca: «C’est elle la
vraie femme. Les femmes qui ont connu l’existence élégante méritent
seules qu’on les admire.»
Ses mains s’égarèrent sur les rondeurs de ce corps adorable, essayèrent
d’écarter les vêtements importuns.
Soudain tous deux se repoussèrent sous le coup d’une violente surprise
et se hâtèrent de réparer le désordre de leur aspect. Sébastienne venait de
frapper à la porte et demandait la permission d’entrer.
La métisse était trop bien stylée pour ouvrir une porte sans autorisation;
mais avant de la solliciter elle jugeait toujours bon de jeter un coup d’œil
par le trou de la serrure.
Sa tête parut enfin dans l’entre-bâillement et elle dit, en voilant son
regard malicieux:
—Mon ancien patron, don Pirovani, demande à voir Madame. Il dit que
c’est très pressé.
Richard se leva pour partir; Hélène le supplia de rester, lui promettant de
congédier l’intrus au plus tôt. Mais le jeune homme avait repris son sang-
froid et s’était rendu compte du danger qu’il venait de courir; il saisit
l’occasion qui se présentait et se retira, désireux de ne pas rester seul avec
elle à nouveau. Sur le seuil il heurta presque l’entrepreneur qui entrait,
saluant de très loin «Madame la Marquise».
Il lui serra la main et disparut incontinent.
Hélène ne chercha pas à dissimuler l’irritation que lui causait cette visite
inopportune; elle reçut l’Italien avec une visible mauvaise humeur.
Elle resta debout pour lui faire comprendre que leur entrevue devait être
brève; mais l’autre, préoccupé, lui demanda la permission de s’asseoir et
prit un fauteuil avant même qu’elle eût répondu. La Torrebianca se contenta
de s’appuyer au bord d’une table.
—Mon mari est indisposé, dit-elle, et a besoin de mes soins. Ce n’est pas
bien grave: l’émotion que lui a causée un malheur de famille. Mais parlons
de vous: quel sujet vous amène ici à une heure pareille?
Pirovani resta un moment sans répondre, pour donner ainsi plus de
solennité aux paroles qu’il allait prononcer.
—Monsieur de Canterac estime qu’après l’incident de ce soir nous
devons nous mesurer dans un duel à mort.
 Hélène, qui ne pensait qu’à Watson et qui supportait mal la présence de
celui qui l’avait mis en fuite, eut un mouvement qui marquait que la
nouvelle l’intéressait peu. Puis elle essaya de dissimuler son indifférence et
dit:
—Cette proposition n’a rien d’extraordinaire. Si j’étais un homme
j’agirais de même.
Pirovani, qui avait hésité jusqu’alors parce qu’il trouvait stupide le défi
de Canterac, se leva de son fauteuil d’un air décidé.
—Eh bien, dit-il, puisque vous l’approuvez, c’est dit. Je me battrai
contre le Français; je me battrai s’il le faut contre la moitié du monde pour
vous prouver que je suis digne de votre estime.
En parlant ainsi il avait saisi une main d’Hélène, mais cette main lui
sembla si molle et si froide qu’il la lâcha avec découragement. Elle se
tourna d’un air las vers les pièces intérieures de la maison, où se trouvait
son mari. Pirovani comprit qu’il devait se retirer, et il se hâta d’obéir, mais
en se dirigeant vers la porte il n’épargna pas à la marquise les déclarations
et les gestes d’un amoureux qui veut faire admirer son héroïsme.
Restée seule enfin, Hélène appela Sébastienne à grands cris. La métisse
ne se hâta pas d’accourir. Elle avait dû accompagner jusqu’à la porte de la
rue son ancien patron.
—Essaie de rejoindre M. Watson, ordonna-t-elle vivement. Il ne doit pas
être loin, dis-lui de revenir.
La métisse sourit, baissa les yeux et dit avec une feinte naïveté:
—Ce serait difficile de le rattraper! Il est parti comme une bombe, ou
comme s’il avait le diable à ses trousses.
En sortant de son ancienne maison, Pirovani se rendit chez Robledo.
L’Espagnol lisait un livre qu’il tenait appuyé contre la lampe à pétrole posée
au centre de la table. En voyant entrer l’entrepreneur il l’accueillit avec des
exclamations et des gestes de reproche.
—Eh bien! qu’est-ce qui vous a donc pris?... Un homme de votre âge et
de votre caractère... Mais vous êtes pire qu’un gamin de quinze ans qui se
bat pour sa fillette.
L’Italien, l’air hautain, n’accepta pas cette réprimande trop tardive et
secrètement fier de ce qu’il annonçait, il dit avec solennité:
 —Je dois avoir un duel à mort avec le capitaine Canterac. Je suis venu
vous trouver pour vous prier d’être mon témoin avec Moreno.
Robledo poussa des clameurs indignées en levant les bras au ciel pour
donner plus de vigueur à sa protestation.
—Et vous croyez que je vais appuyer ces extra-vagances et me montrer
aussi fou que vous ou que l’autre?
Il continua de s’élever contre l’absurde demande de Pirovani, mais
l’Italien secouait la tête avec obstination. Depuis son entretien avec Hélène,
il était résolu à tout.
—Je suis de naissance modeste, dit-il, je n’ai jamais su que travailler,
mais je veux montrer à ce monsieur que je ne le crains pas, quelque habitué
qu’il soit à manier les armes.
Robledo haussa les épaules en entendant ces mots qui lui semblaient
stupides. Il se lassa enfin de protester sans résultat:
—Je vois qu’il est inutile d’essayer de vous rendre le bon sens... C’est
bien, je consens à parler en votre nom, mais à la condition que vous me
laisserez arranger les choses raisonnablement en évitant ce duel.
L’entrepreneur parut offensé et prit une attitude de dignité
chevaleresque.
—Non; je veux le duel à mort. Je ne suis pas un lâche et je ne cherche
pas des accommodements.
Puis il laissa voir sa vraie pensée:
—Je n’ai pas reçu une brillante éducation, mais je sais comment on doit
se comporter dans des circonstances comme celle-ci. En outre, des
personnes haut placées m’ont dit leur opinion. Je dois me battre, je me
battrai.
Il prononça ces mots avec une telle conviction que Robledo devina
qu’Hélène était la «personne haut placée» qui l’avait conseillé. Il le regarda
avec pitié, puis déclara qu’il se refusait de façon formelle à lui servir de
témoin.
Pirovani, convaincu qu’il n’obtiendrait plus rien de lui, prit congé et se
dirigea vers la maison de Moreno.
Le jour suivant, don Carlos Rojas reçut une visite fort matinale. Il se
trouvait devant la porte du corps de logis de son estancia quand il vit
arriver, monté sur un bidet qui le fit sourire, un cavalier en costume de ville.
 C’était le secrétaire Moreno.
—Où courez-vous, monté sur cette rosse?... Descendez; que diriez-vous
d’un peu de maté, camarade?
Tous deux entrèrent dans la pièce qui servait de salon et de bureau à don
Carlos, et, tandis qu’une petite servante préparait le maté, Moreno aperçut
par une porte entre-bâillée la fille de Rojas assise, triste et pensive, dans un
fauteuil d’osier. Elle portait un costume féminin et semblait avoir dépouillé
avec ses habits d’homme son audace joyeuse de garçon turbulent.
Moreno la salua, de son côté de la porte, et elle répondit
mélancoliquement à son salut.
—Regardez-la, dit le père, elle n’est plus la même. Est-ce qu’on ne la
croirait pas malade; la jeunesse est ainsi.
Celinda sourit d’un air las et secoua la tête: Non, elle n’était pas malade.
Bientôt, elle quitta la pièce où elle se trouvait, trop voisine du salon, pour
permettre aux deux hommes de parler librement.
Quand ils eurent pris la première tasse de maté, Rojas offrit à Moreno un
cigare, alluma le sien et se prépara à écouter.
—Quel bon vent vous amène en ces lieux, mon cher rond-de-cuir? Vous
n’êtes pas homme de cheval, et ce n’est pas pour rien que vous avez poussé
un galop jusqu’ici.
Le rond-de-cuir continua de fumer avec le calme d’un Oriental qui aime
exciter la curiosité de son interlocuteur avant d’entrer en matière.
—Dans votre jeunesse, don Carlos, dit-il enfin, vous avez su manier les
armes. Je me suis laissé dire que lorsque vous habitiez Buenos-Ayres vous
avez eu plus d’un duel, pour histoires de femmes.
Rojas regarda de côté et d’autre pour s’assurer que sa fille était loin et ne
pouvait entendre. Puis il sourit avec la vanité d’un homme mûr qui évoque
les aventures de sa jeunesse ardente, et il dit, faussement modeste:
—Bah! tout cela est oublié! Péchés de jeunesse! C’était l’habitude
d’autrefois!
Moreno crut devoir rester silencieux un long moment, puis il ajouta:
—L’ingénieur Canterac et l’entrepreneur Pirovani se battront en duel
demain... C’est un duel à mort.
—Quoi, ces choses-là ne sont pas encore passées de mode? Et ici, en
plein désert?
 Moreno fit oui de la tête sans dire un mot. L’estanciero resta muet lui
aussi et il regarda son hôte avec des yeux interrogateurs. En quoi cela le
regardait-il? Il avait donc fait ce voyage pour le plaisir de lui annoncer cette
nouvelle?
—Canterac, dit l’employé, a comme témoin le marquis de Torrebianca et
le gringo Watson. Comme ils sont tous deux ingénieurs, ils ne peuvent
refuser un service aussi important à un collègue.
Rojas trouva la chose fort naturelle. Mais, que lui importait, à lui, que les
témoins fussent celui-ci ou celui-là.
—Pirovani n’a pu trouver que moi, continua Moreno, et je viens vous
prier, don Carlos, vous qui connaissez les armes, de me tirer d’affaire en
acceptant d’être le second témoin de l’Italien.
L’estanciero protesta avec véhémence.
—Assez de blagues, hein?... Pourquoi irais-je me mêler des zizanies
entre les gens de la Presa, qui d’ailleurs sont tous mes amis? Et puis, je suis
trop vieux pour m’embarquer dans ces affaires et je ne tiens pas à jouer au
matamore.
Moreno insista et la discussion des deux hommes dura quelques minutes.
Don Carlos enfin parut mollir, séduit par le mystère que cachait ce duel
inattendu. Son rôle de témoin lui permettrait peut-être de découvrir des
choses fort drôles et fort intéressantes.
—Bon, ce sera comme vous voudrez. Qu’est-ce que vous ne me feriez
pas faire, rond-de-cuir maudit!
Il sourit ensuite d’un air égrillard, et, frappant la cuisse de l’employé, il
lui demanda en baissant le ton:
—Et pourquoi veulent-ils se tuer? Histoire de femme encore? Cette
marquise qui les a tous rendus fous, elle est bien pour quelque chose dans
l’aventure?
Moreno prit une attitude pleine de réserve et porta un doigt à ses lèvres
pour lui imposer silence.
—Soyez prudent, don Carlos. Songez que nous aurons affaire au marquis
de Torrebianca, qui est témoin et qui dirigera sans doute le combat, car il est
expert en cette matière.
L’estanciero se mit à rire en appliquant de nouvelles claques sur les
cuisses de son ami. Il riait de si bon cœur qu’il portait de temps en temps sa
main à sa gorge comme s’il eût craint d’étouffer.
—Ah! elle est bien bonne!... C’est le mari qui sera directeur du duel... Et
c’est pour sa femme que les deux autres se battent!... Ces gringos sont
vraiment délicieux! Je serai bien content de voir ça... c’est formidable!
Puis il reprit, calmé:
—Eh bien, oui, j’accepte d’être témoin. C’est plus fort qu’une place de
théâtre à Buenos-Ayres, ou que ces histoires de cinéma dont ma fillette
raffole.
Vers le milieu de l’après-midi, Moreno, qui avait déjeuné à l’estancia de
Rojas, regagna la Presa et mit pied à terre devant l’ancienne maison de
Pirovani.
Torrebianca marchait de long en large dans la pièce qui lui servait de
bureau. Il était vêtu de noir et paraissait plus triste et plus découragé que les
jours précédents. Il s’arrêtait parfois près de sa table sur laquelle était posée
une boîte de pistolets ouverte. Il avait passé une partie de l’après-midi à
nettoyer ces armes et à les contempler mélancoliquement, comme si leur
vue eût évoqué pour lui de lointains souvenirs. S’il oubliait un instant les
pistolets, c’était pour regarder une photographie placée aussi sur la table: la
photographie de sa mère. Ses yeux se mouillaient quand il la contemplait.
Moreno le salua, se hâta de l’informer qu’il avait trouvé un autre témoin,
et qu’il avait pleins pouvoirs pour discuter avec lui les préparatifs du
combat. Le marquis s’inclina avec un salut cérémonieux, puis lui fit voir les
pistolets.
—Je les ai apportés d’Europe; ils ont servi plus d’une fois en des
circonstances aussi graves que celle qui nous occupe. Examinez-les avec
soin; nous n’en avons pas d’autres, les deux parties doivent donc les
accepter.
L’employé répondit qu’il jugeait inutile de les vérifier et qu’il acceptait
toutes les décisions du marquis.
Torrebianca continua de parler avec une noble dignité qui impressionnait
vivement Moreno.
«Le pauvre homme, pensait-il, ignore sa véritable situation. C’est un
homme de cœur et d’honneur: un vrai gentilhomme qui ne sait rien des
actes de sa femme et du triste rôle qu’il va jouer.»
 Tandis que l’Argentin le regardait avec une sympathie apitoyée, le
marquis ajouta:
—Aucun des deux adversaires ne veut faire d’excuses et les injures sont
extrêmement graves; nous devons donc décider que le duel sera un duel à
mort. N’est-ce pas votre avis, Monsieur?
L’employé s’était rendu compte de l’importance de cette conversation.
Très grave, il approuva silencieusement de la tête.
—Mon client, continua le marquis, n’admet pas moins de trois balles
échangées à vingt pas avec faculté de viser pendant cinq secondes.
Moreno battit des paupières, consterné, et parut sur le point de rejeter
des conditions pareilles; mais il se souvint d’un dernier entretien qu’il avait
eu avec Pirovani le matin même avant de partir pour l’estancia de Rojas.
L’Italien avait paru transfiguré par un enthousiasme belliqueux. Il se
félicitait qu’une occasion lui fût donnée de prendre devant «Madame la
Marquise» la figure d’un héros de roman. «Acceptez toutes les conditions,
avait-il dit à Moreno, aussi terribles soient-elles. Je veux montrer que si j’ai
débuté comme simple ouvrier, j’ai plus de bravoure et de vraie noblesse que
ce capitaine.»
L’employé se résigna donc à faire de la tête un nouveau signe affirmatif.
—Ce soir, continua le marquis, les quatre témoins se réuniront chez
Watson pour arrêter les conditions par écrit, et la rencontre aura lieu demain
à la première heure.
Le témoin de Pirovani fit savoir que don Carlos Rojas ne pourrait
assister à la réunion, car il était allé à Fort Sarmiento chercher un médecin
qui assisterait au combat; mais lui-même signerait en son nom tous les
documents utiles. Et les deux témoins se séparèrent.
En sortant de la maison, Moreno aperçut près du perron le commissaire
de police qui semblait l’attendre. Don Roque l’interpella avec indignation:
—Vous vous figurez sans doute que vous pouvez faire ici tout ce qu’il
vous plaît, et que dans ce pays il n’y a ni autorité ni loi ni règle, comme au
temps des Indiens. Je suis commissaire de police, sachez-le bien, et j’ai le
devoir d’empêcher les gens de faire des folies. Dites-moi à quel moment
aura lieu le duel... J’ai besoin de le savoir.
Moreno refusa de le dire, et devant son entêtement le commissaire prit
un ton plus aimable.
 —Dites-le moi, et ne faites pas le malin. Songez qu’il n’est pas
convenable que des choses pareilles se passent ici, moi présent. Dites-moi
l’heure de l’affaire pour que je puisse m’éloigner avant.
Le témoin lui parla à l’oreille, et don Roque lui serra la main pour le
remercier de sa confidence. Ensuite, il alla prendre son cheval qui se
trouvait à proximité et, le pied déjà dans l’étrier, il dit à voix basse:
—Je vais passer la nuit à Fort Sarmiento, et je ne serai pas de retour
avant demain soir... Faites ce que vous voudrez... Je ne sais rien.
 XIV
Les clients les plus attardés du bar commençaient à se retirer quand
Robledo arriva devant la maison où logeait Hélène.
Il gravit à pas silencieux le perron et après un moment d’hésitation il
frappa discrètement. La porte s’ouvrit bientôt et Sébastienne parut; cet
appel l’avait surprise au moment où elle allait se coucher. Ses cheveux
raides étaient divisés en une infinité de tresses, nouées chacune d’un petit
lacet, et elle s’efforçait de dissimuler sous la masse énorme de ses bras une
partie de sa gorge cuivrée et puissante, que son corsage dégrafé laissait à
découvert. Ses yeux furibonds prédisaient à l’importun une avalanche
d’insultes, mais ils s’adoucirent à la vue de Robledo, et elle dit aimablement
avant même qu’il eût prononcé un mot:
—La patronne est dans sa chambre et le marquis est parti avec sa
maudite boîte de pistolets. Je croyais qu’il était avec vous... Entrez, don
Robledo; je vais prévenir Madame.
L’ingénieur n’ignorait pas que Torrebianca se trouvait chez lui avec les
autres témoins; mais il avait besoin de parler immédiatement à Hélène.
Pourtant, il recula en voyant Sébastienne ouvrir la porte toute grande pour
l’inviter à entrer. Il eut peur de se trouver seul avec la marquise dans la
salle. Il fallait que leur entrevue fût courte. D’ailleurs le mari pouvait
arriver et il lui serait difficile d’expliquer sa présence dans la maison, alors
qu’il venait de le voir et de lui parler dans sa propre demeure.
—Je n’ai pas grand’chose à dire à ta patronne... Il vaut mieux qu’elle
vienne à la fenêtre de sa chambre.
La métisse ferma la porte et Robledo, avançant sur la galerie extérieure,
passa devant plusieurs fenêtres. Un instant après, l’une d’elles s’ouvrit et la
marquise s’y montra, les cheveux dénoués; un peignoir négligemment jeté
sur ses épaules laissait à découvert une grande partie de ses bras et de sa
gorge.
Elle s’était habillée précipitamment, et semblait effrayée; avant même
que Robledo l’eût saluée elle demanda d’une voix angoissée:
—Un malheur est arrivé à Watson? Pourquoi venez-vous ici à pareille
heure?
 Robledo sourit ironiquement avant de répondre.
—Watson est en bonne santé, et si je viens à pareille heure, c’est pour
vous parler d’un autre homme.
Puis il fixa sur elle un regard sévère et continua lentement:
—Au lever du soleil deux hommes vont s’entretuer. Cette tragique folie
m’ôte le sommeil, et je suis venu vous dire: «Hélène, empêchez ce
malheur.»
Sûre maintenant que Watson était sauf, elle répondit avec humeur:
—Que voulez-vous que j’y fasse? Ils peuvent bien se battre si cela leur
plaît... C’est le fait des hommes.
Robledo fut consterné de cette cruauté.
—Je ne suis qu’une femme, continua-t-elle, mais ces combats ne
m’effraient pas. Frédéric s’est battu une fois pour moi peu de temps après
notre mariage. Là-bas, dans mon pays, plus d’un homme a risqué sa vie
pour m’être agréable, et je n’ai jamais essayé de l’empêcher.
Elle eut une moue de mépris et ajouta:
—Vous voudriez que j’aille prier ces deux messieurs de ne pas risquer
leur précieuse vie, pour qu’ensuite chacun d’entre eux vienne me réclamer
quelque faveur en échange de son obéissance?... D’ailleurs, si j’intervenais
dans cette affaire ils croiraient tous deux qu’ils m’inspirent beaucoup
d’intérêt, et je me moque de l’un et de l’autre... S’il s’agissait d’un autre
homme, peut-être céderais-je à votre prière.
L’Espagnol hocha la tête en entendant ces mots: «autre homme», et un
instant l’image de son associé lui apparut. Hélène le regardait maintenant
avec pitié.
—Dormez tranquille, Robledo, comme je vais dormir moi-même.
Laissez ces deux orgueilleux annoncer qu’ils vont se tuer. Il n’arrivera rien
de grave, vous verrez.
Elle s’écarta un peu de la fenêtre, par peur des jejenes et de tous les
insectes sanguinaires qui, attirés par sa chair appétissante, commençaient à
bourdonner autour de ses épaules et l’obligeaient à les chasser de la main
tout en parlant.
—Si vous voyez Watson, dites-lui que je l’ai attendu toute la journée.
Avec cette histoire de duel on ne peut plus lui parler... A demain, passez une
nuit bien tranquille.
 Elle ferma la fenêtre en simulant une peur enfantine des moustiques et
Robledo découragé dut se retirer.
A cette heure même, l’ingénieur Canterac écrivait sur sa table de travail
et terminait une longue lettre par ces mots «telle est ma dernière volonté; je
compte sur vous pour l’exécuter. Adieu, chère femme! adieu mes enfants!
Pardonnez-moi.»
Il plia le papier pour l’introduire dans l’enveloppe qu’il plaça ensuite
dans la poche intérieure d’une redingote suspendue à côté de lui.
«Si je tombe demain, pensa-t-il, on trouvera cette lettre sur ma poitrine.
Je chargerai Watson, avant le duel, de l’envoyer à ma famille au cas où je
mourrais.»
Une heure après, son adversaire entrait chez Moreno. L’employé revenait
de la réunion où il avait rencontré les témoins de Canterac. Pirovani lui
parla d’une voix lente en s’efforçant de cacher son émotion.
Il venait de déposer sur la table de Moreno deux lettres dont l’une, très
volumineuse, était sous enveloppe ouverte. Il avait écrit pendant une partie
de la nuit dans son logement pour résumer dans ces deux lettres l’état de ses
affaires. Il montra la plus mince et dit:
—Celle-ci est pour ma fille. Vous la lui enverrez si je meurs.
L’Argentin s’efforça de rire pour montrer qu’il ne croyait pas à la
possibilité de sa mort et que de telles paroles méritaient seulement qu’on
s’en amusât. Mais il ne persista guère dans sa gaîté factice car la voix de
l’entrepreneur restait grave.
—Dans l’enveloppe la plus épaisse vous trouverez une procuration en
règle qui vous permettra de toucher sans difficulté ce que le gouvernement
me doit, et les sommes que j’ai en dépôt dans les banques. Vous êtes habile
et vous n’aurez pas de peine à vous rendre compte, en examinant ces
papiers, de l’état de mes affaires et à trouver le meilleur moyen de les
liquider. J’ai fait aussi un testament qui vous nomme tuteur de ma fille.
Vous êtes le seul homme en qui j’aie confiance. Sans doute vous avez
penché plus d’une fois du côté de mon adversaire plutôt que du mien, mais
cela importe peu. Je sais que vous êtes un honnête homme et je vous confie
ma fille et ma fortune; tout ce que je possède au monde.
Moreno fut si touché par cette marque de confiance qu’il dut porter une
main à ses yeux. Puis il se leva, serra avec force la main de l’Italien et
d’une voix entrecoupée il lui promit d’exécuter fidèlement toutes ses
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