Mallarmé's "Throw of the Dice" remains an unparalleled poem - not only because of its typographical variation and the multitude of asides that disrupt any linear reading. Even more remarkable is its content: a shipwrecked "master," who clutches the dice in his fist, hesitates whether to throw them in the face of the raging waves that will soon engulf him. He senses that the outcome of such a throw - the number - would be of extraordinary importance. In his reading, Quentin Meillassoux delves into this number. He demonstrates that the poem is encoded with a secret code. "Yet this discovery raises a question that has never been asked before: Why the enigma of the throw of the dice, or: why this particular enigma? The code will not provide the final key to the poem, but rather the form of its unforeseen meaning.".