They were exotic and seemed to have some mysterious eastern mythology about them but, most of all, they involved her ending up all but naked. It was a brilliant move. Dancers at the Moulin Rouge were flashing their knickers and breasts but Zelle's great departure was to push the bounds of discretion even further and wrap sex up with religion and art. She began by performing in private homes, but soon the stories of her "artistry" and, above all, her nudity were passing round the salons of Parisian high society. She wore a beaded metallic bra, which never came off - she was self-conscious about her tiny breasts - but the veils covering the rest of her floated free as she danced in "slow, undulating, tigerlike movements". The critics enthused, "feline, trembling in a thousand rhythms, exotic yet deeply austere, slender and supple like a sacred serpent". She added spice to the performance with lies. First there was her name - Mata Hari, meaning "sunrise" or, more literally, "the eye of the day", in the language of the Dutch East Indies. Then there were the stories to the press, that she was the daughter of an Indian temple dancer who had died giving birth to her, that she grew up in a jungle in Java.