find eroticism hidden where we should
least expect it, for instance in certain books for the edification of
the pious. Here also it does not fail to produce its effect, although
old maids and pious families place these books in their libraries and
recommend them as proper reading. It has been said with reason, that
"what is improper in the nudity of a statue is the fig-leaf and not
what is underneath." It is, in fact, these fig-leaves--sculptured,
painted, written or spoken--which awaken lewdness rather than deaden
it. By drawing attention to what they conceal, they excite sensuality
much more than simple nudity. In short, the eroticism which plays at
hide and seek is that which acts with greatest intensity. The
directors of ballets and other similar spectacles know this only too
well, and arrange accordingly.

I have seen at the Paris Exposition an Arab woman perform the erotic
dance called the "danse du ventre," in which the various movements of
coitus are imitated by movements of the hips and loins. I do not
think, however, that this pantomime, as cynical as it is coarse,
produces on the spectators such an erotic effect as the _decollete_
costumes of society ladies, or even certain amorous scenes of
religious ecstasy in words or pictures (vide Chapter XII). As the
"danse du ventre" was produced under the head of _ethnology_, it was
witnessed by society ladies without their being in the least degree
wounded in their sentiments of modesty! It is extremely difficult, if
not impossible, to define the limit between art and pornography. I
will attempt to give an example.

In his novels and romances, Guy de Maupassant has given perhaps the
finest and most true descriptions which exist of the psychology of
love and the sexual appetite. Although he has depicted the most
ticklish sexual situations, often most _recherche_, we can say that
with few exceptions he has not written in a pornographic spirit. His
descriptions are profound and true, and he does not attempt to make
attractive what is ugly and immoral, although he cannot be blamed for
moralizing.

We have seen that the old hypocritical eroticism consisted essentially
in the art of describing sexual forbidden fruit and making it as
desirable as possible, at the same time covering it with pious phrases
which were only a transparent mask. Vice was condemned, but described
in such a way as to make the reader's mouth water. There is nothing of
this in Guy de Maupassant,