"I just didn't know what was going on."
"Some people said it was the best dance they had ever seen."
"Well, I just don't know about dance."
"Dance," Gray says, "is not accessible to people. It always bothers me, when people feel inadequate at a dance concert. I found it very moving. It was very minimal but I find great humanity and sadness in it."
Crooks nods absently. He is surviving and not thinking a great deal about humanity and sadness, although the two work their way through his life constantly, without his having to call them forth. He has a new wife and child to think about--she was the Dudley House Senior Tutor's secretary, and he married her one day four years ago during lunch hour--and the Summer School to look after. When he comes right down to it perhaps the thing Crooks likes best about the Summer School is its open admissions policy, the way it lets anyone who wants to (and, Crooks admits, has the money) sample Harvard. Running a program like that is like holding on to the good parts of Harvard and letting the other parts of it go, even if it does mean feeling peripheral sometimes.
That morning's mail had brought a nice note from Rodney Peterson, the young minister at, Memorial Church who runs Morning Prayers during the summer. Peterson had written Crooks in impeccable handwriting to thank him for leading the prayers a few weeks before.
"Dear Mr. Crooks," the letter had said. "You are part of one of the oldest continuing traditions at this University--and one not without significance, particularly in these troubled times."