The art of predicting the future with their sounds is one of the least known and most disused branches of the occult.

Gevingey had dug up some documents, and wished to verify them in the tower." "Why, what did he do ?" "How do I know?
He stood under the bell, at the risk of breaking his bones--a man of his age on the scaffolding there! He was halfway into the bell, the bell like a great hat, you see, coming clear down over his hips.

And he soliloquized aloud and listened to the repercussions of his voice making the bronze vibrate.
"He spoke to me also of the interpretation of dreams about bells.
According to him, whoever, in his sleep, sees bells swinging, is menaced by an accident; if the bell chimes, it is presage of slander; if it falls, ataxia is certain; if it breaks, it is assurance of afflictions and miseries.

Finally he added, I believe, that if the night birds fly around a bell by moonlight one may be sure that sacrilegious robbery will be committed in the church, or that the curate's life is in danger.
"Be all that as it may, this business of touching the bells, getting up into them--and you know they're consecrated--of attributing to them the gift of prophecy, of involving them in the interpretation of dream--an art formally forbidden in Leviticus--displeased me, and I demanded, somewhat rudely, that he desist." "But you did not quarrel ?" "No, and I confess I regret having been so hasty." "Well then, I will arrange it.

I shall go see him--agreed ?" said Des Hermies.
"By all means." "With that we must run along and give you a chance to get to bed, seeing that you have to be up at dawn." "Oh, at half-past five for the six o'clock angelus, and then, if I want to, I can go back to bed, for I don't have to ring again till a quarter to eight, and then all I have to do is sound a couple of times for the curate's mass.