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"Ever been North before?"
"Spent two Julys in Asheville, North Carolina."
"Nice-looking crowd, aren't they?" suggested Patton, indicating the swirling floor.
Sally Carrol started. This had been Harry's remark.
"Sure are! They're-- canine."
"What?"
She flushed.
"I'm sorry; that sounded worse than I meant it. You see I always think of people as feline or canine, irrespective of sex."
"Which are you?"
"I'm feline. So are you. So are most Southern men an' most of these girls here."
"What's Harry?"
"Harry's canine distinctly. All the men I've met to-night seem to be canine."
"What does `canine' imply? A certain conscious masculinity as opposed to subtlety?"
"Reckon so. I never analyzed it-- only I just look at people an' say `canine' or `feline' right off. It's right absurd, I guess."
"Not at all. I'm interested. I used to have a theory about these people. I think they're freezing up."
"What?"
"I think they're growing like Swedes-- Ibsenesque, you know. Very gradually getting gloomy and melancholy. It's these long winters. Ever read any Ibsen?"
She shook her head.
"Well, you find in his characters a certain brooding rigidity. They're righteous, narrow, and cheerless, without infinite possibilities for great sorrow or joy."
"Without smiles or tears?"
"Exactly. That's my theory. You see there are thousands of Swedes up here. They come, I imagine, because the climate is very much like their own, and there's been a gradual mingling. There're probably not half a dozen here to-night, but-- we've had four Swedish governors. Am I boring you?'
"I'm mighty interested."
"Your future sister-in-law is half Swedish. Personally I like her, but my theory is that Swedes react rather badly on us as a whole. Scandinavians, you know, have the largest suicide rate in the world."
"Why do you live here if it's so depressing?"
"Oh, it doesn't get me. I'm pretty well cloistered, and I suppose, books mean more than people to me anyway."
"But writers all speak about the South being tragic. You know-- Spanish seoritas, black hair and daggers an' haunting music."
He shook his head.
"No, the Northern races are the tragic races-- they don't indulge in the cheering luxury of tears."
Sally Carrol thought of her graveyard. She supposed that that was vaguely what she had meant when she said it didn't depress her.
"The Italians are about the gayest people in the world-- but it's a dull subject," he broke off. "Anyway, I want to tell you you're marrying a pretty fine man."
Sally Carrol was moved by an impulse of confidence.
"I know. I'm the sort of person who wants to be taken care of after a certain point, and I feel sure I will be."
"Shall we dance? You know," he continued as they rose, "it's encouraging to find a girl who knows what she's marrying for. Nine-tenths of them think of it as a sort of walking into a moving-picture sunset."
She laughed, and liked him immensely.

- F. S. Fitzgerlad, 'The Iced Palace'(1963)

어떠한 사람을 갯과 인간과 고양잇과 인간으로 분류하는 것이 비단 나 뿐만이 아니었다는 것은 어느 정도는 기쁜(혹은 뿌듯한) 일이나, 저작권이랄지 먼저 생각해 낸 인간으로서의 권리랄지 하는 것들을 내세우자니 1960년대와 2000대의 간극이 너무 크다. 그러면, 스스로를 철썩같이 고양잇과 인간으로 철썩같이 믿고 있는 내 자신은 요즘 어떻게 지내는고, 하니, 밖에 나설 때는 갯과 인간의 탈을 뒤집어 쓰기 위해 노력하며 지내고 있다 - 그것이 성공적인지 아닌지는 별개로 하고서라도 말이다. 어찌하여 그리 살고 있는고, 그것은 아직 이 사회에서 고양잇과 인간은 그다지 환영받지 않는다는 것(혹은 이 사회가 아직 고양잇과 인간을 받아들일 준비가 되어 있지 않다는것), 따라서 성공적인 생활 혹은 인간관계를 영위하기 위해서는 다소나마 갯과 인간이 되거나 최소한 그런 시늉이라도 해야 한다는 것이 지난 경험들에 근거해 내린 결론이기 때문이다.

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