Poetry · Chapter
Magasins du Louvre explained
The poem presents a surreal, voyeuristic scene in a department store where glass-eyed dolls and mannequins dominate the space.
What happens
The poem presents a surreal, voyeuristic scene in a department store where glass-eyed dolls and mannequins dominate the space. Two cocottes (courtesans) pass through, their gazes shifting from the dolls to each other in a moment of intimate recognition, while the speaker's own eyes become entangled in the carpet pattern, ashamed at having witnessed something deeply private.
Themes in this chapter
Alienation and Belonging
The glass-eyed dolls and the cocottes' fleeting, surreptitious connection highlight the alienation of modern life and the search for intimacy.
The Body and Mortality
The dolls' glass eyes and 'composite babies' evoke a lifeless, mechanical body, contrasting with the living but commodified bodies of the cocottes.
Characters to notice
- Mary
Implied speaker or observer whose eyes are 'inextricably entangled with the pattern of the carpet' in shame.
Key passages
“All the virgin eyes in the world are made of glass”
All innocent, unseeing eyes are like glass—reflective but empty, unable to truly perceive.
Opens and closes the poem, framing the theme of superficial vision and the impossibility of genuine sight.
“They alone have the effrontery to Stare through the human soul Seeing nothing”
Only these glass eyes dare to look directly into the soul, yet they see nothing at all.
Highlights the paradox of the gaze: the dolls' eyes appear to penetrate but are ultimately vacant.
“While mine are inextricably entangled with the pattern of the carpet As eyes are apt to be In their shame Having surprised a gesture that is ultimately intimate”
My own eyes become lost in the carpet's design, as eyes often do when embarrassed after witnessing an intensely private moment.
Captures the speaker's shame and the voyeuristic tension of the scene.