Giselle's feet are a recurring image in this section. Nostromo clearly finds them
attractive, but the meaning is subtler than that. Feet are used to walk on the
earth, and Nostromo's fantasy of "her own land" below is "to set
her little feet upon," so, allegorically, Giselle's feet represent the ideal
of utopian socialism brought to earth, to reality. As we read further, however,
a complication with the feet will arise. They are dressed in "white stockings
and black slippers," sounding a moral alarm that the earthly part may not
be as pure as the inner. In the next chapter Linda will call Giselle a "vile
thing of white flesh and black deception." The implication, as I read it,
is that the ideal of utopian socialism is a pretty deception, deceptive precisely
in its promise of being brought unstained to earth. Note in the next paragraph
where utopian socialism must lower its eyes to discover its feet, as if called
downward toward reality by the voice of the People.