From Roberto Bollaño's posthumous, five-part masterpiece, the lyrical and haunting 2666:
"Then Boris Yeltsin looked at Amalfitano with curiousity, as if it were Amalfitano who had invaded his dream, not the other way around. And he said: listen carefully to what I have to say, comrade. I'm going to explain what the third leg of the human table is. I'm going to tell you. And then leave me alone. Life is demand and supply, or supply and demand, that's what it all boils down to, but that's no way to live. A third leg is needed to keep the table from permanently collapsing into the garbage pit of the world. So take note. This is the equation: supply + demand + magic. And what is magic? Magic is epic and it's also sex and Dionysian mists and play. And then Yeltsin sat on the crater of the latrine and showed Amalfitano the fingers he was missing and talked about his childhood and about the Urals and Siberia and about a white tiger that roamed the infinite snowy spaces. And the he took a flask of vodka out of his suit pocket and said:
"I think it's time for a little drink.""
(2008, Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
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