The censors had scored through four lines in the paragraph following that one. Bearing that in mind, the question which remains to us is this: what is humanity? What do we have to do to keep humanity as one thing and not another? Eun-sook could remember the precise thickness of the line that had been drawn through these sentences. She could recall the translator's fleshy neck, his shabby navy sweater, his sallow complexion; his long, blackened fingernails constantly fumbling with the glass of water. But she still couldn't picture his face.

She closed the book and waited. Turned to face the window, and waited for darkness to fall.

She had no faith in humanity. The look in someone's eyes, the beliefs they espoused, the eloquence with which they did so, were, she knew, no guarantee of anything. She knew that the only life left to her was one hemmed in by the niggling doubts and cold questions.

— Human Acts by Han Kang (Page 97)