The Bells of Notre Dame

Last August I stood in front of Notre Dame, holding my Iphone up to the ringing cathedral bells. The late morning felt like dawn but that’s how Paris was — the sun was always low and casting long shadows. Every hour seemed earlier or later than it really was.

I remember the cool breeze, the milling tourists babbling in tongues, the woman next to me crouched beneath her Powershot. A line crossed the plaza from the cathedral door, an even longer one stretched from the foot of the bell tower down the block to the end of the nave. A hundred feet away, chartered buses waited on the curb.

I had just finished Notre Dame de Paris, so I tried to imagine Quasimodo high up in one of the towers, slipping carefully behind its walls, gazing down on Esmerelda as she and her goat performed tricks for the passersby.

Click on the audio button below to hear what all of this sounded like.