Chapter 26 was a little confusing--Procurator's secret guard Aphranius has arranged to assassinate Yehuda by setting a trap with Yehuda's love interest Niza. Aphranius and Niza plan to redirect Yehuda to the olive tree garden, where he is ambushed, robbed, and slain. Again, this is an alteration of the bible, which claims that Yehuda hangs himself on an olive tree in grief. What I got confused over, however, was when Aphranius told Pontius that he " 'did not succeed in protecting Yehudah' " from getting killed (336). At first, I immediately thought, well Aphranius is lying because he is pretending not to have any relation to the assassins. And Pontius, having too much trust for Aphranius, does not question him. Right after, however, when Mathu Levi swears he will live as long as it takes to Yehudah, Pontius claims he already killed him. Does Pontius take the credit dishonestly, or was he actually part of the plan in hiring the assassins to dispose of Yehuda? Again, Yehuda's death seems to follow the theme of punishment for sin. Right before his death, he commits the sin of betrayal and lust. Whereas, Mathu Levi is spared for his honesty and loyalty.
Chapter 27 is more interesting. Juxtaposed with the Jesus's death, Bulgakov creates a scene where Behemoth is shot but cannot be killed. Behemoth is immortal whereas Jesus is not, once again seemingly placing the devil about Jesus. At the same time, however, the devil's evilness is wearing down. In this chapter, many of the devil's previous evils have been restored: for example, for the first time, people remember who the black magician and the Variety Theater is (restoration of memory), Prokhor Petrovih returns to his suit (restoration of body), although Rimsky and Varenukha are not restored to complete health, they are found (restoration of missing people), and the police finally begin to believe the ridiculous events Homeless and everyone else is relaying (restoration of the truth). Does this suggest that the devil's effects are temporary? Or that he has a good conscious and has basically restored everything to near-order? Another speculation: perhaps all these restorations result from the Master and Margarita's ultimate restoration of love/happiness? Indeed, Sabbath is also coming too, and thus the devil and his cohorts have to leave. It could be in fact that everything is slowly being restored because the devil's presence is leaving. All that is left to wonder is where is Natasha? And poor Berlioz is still dead.
Some other interesting observations: in both chapters, Bulgakov draws attention to the eyes as a window to the soul. Iris said in the beginning of the novel, how the eyes in this book couldn't be trusted, but here it seems they have been restored of their truth as well. Also, Kitaitsev claims that Styopa never called him to get Woland's performance approved. Originally, when Styopa called his manager, the manager seemed to agree that all the proper paperwork had been filled out, giving the devil more power to even control third parties. But here, unless Kitaitsev is denying the truth (but everyone else is telling the truth), the devil's powers are diminished again.
Lastly, this might be a bit of a stretch. But on page 351, when Varenukha gets interrogated, at first he starts with a lie, despite promising to Azazello he would never lie again, but only when on the phone. Varenhuka is trying to find a loophole, which reminded me of loopholes in the law. Perhaps it is similar to writer's in the communist regime, constantly trying to find loopholes in the system so they can still get their work published and ideas pushed forth.
-Black Poodle
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