To see the navel of a copper’s wife
is certainly not a spectacle
which, from the esthetic point of view,
could lift you to a pinnacle...
There was, nevertheless, in old Paris,
a decent chap with no thought of ill
burning to compemplate the navel
of the wife of a police constable.
“I’m getting old, he used to groan,
And, in the course of my life,
I’ve seen a good number of navels
of all shapes and sizes:
navels of pall-bearers wives, navels,
of coalmen’s wives, of clown’s wives,
but I’ve never see that
Of the wife of a police constable...
My father saw, as I see you,
the navels of gendarmes’ wives.
My brother has sampled more than once
the charms of those of the wives of inspectors...
My son saw the navel of the mistress
of a minister of Justice...
And me, I haven’t even seen the navel
of the wife of a police constable...”
Thus he was moaning in public,
this decent old man,
when the legitimate wife of a copper,
offering a helping navel,
said to him: “I’m going to put an end
to your painful suffering,
show you at last the navel
of the wife of a police constable...”
“Alleluia!” went the old guy
“Here’s the release from my torments!
Let thanks be rendered to the Good Lord,
I’m going to realise my dream!”
He began, quite softened,
under the skirts of his benefactress,
To turn his eyes towards the navel
of the wife of a police constable...
But, Alas! he was overcome
by the effects of his obsession,
and as he was attaining the goal
of fifty years of lust
death, death, death took him
on the abdomen of his accomplice:
he never did see the navel
of the wife of a police constable.