carol reading about genly and estraven forging a connection out on the ice, freezing, starving, exhausted, yet happier than they've ever been... while she watches zosia indulge in one of the many luxuries their vacation has afforded them, never even turning to acknowledge her. and even when they move from beach to snow, she doesn't get to feel it like she did with helen. it's all warm and comfortable and she wants for nothing.
which is why it's so so much colder by that fire than it ever would have been inside that tent.
We are inside, the two of us, in shelter, at rest, at the center of all things. Outside, as always, lies the great darkness, the cold, death's solitude. In such fortunate moments as I fall asleep I know beyond doubt what the real center of my own life is, that time which is past and lost and yet is permanent, the enduring moment, the heart of warmth. [...] I certainly wasn't happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can't earn, and can't keep, and often don't even recognize at the time; I mean joy.
