26-27 (Powdered Whiskers)

So we have many characters to think about in 26; Niza, Aphranius and Yehudah are the most important/interesting.
The Procurator has a premonition, which he shares with Aphranius, that Yehudah will be killed the night of the festivities in Yershalayim. Pilate claims that the other followers of Yeshua will kill Yehudah for betraying him (as he did earlier in the tale), and return the money to the high priest. We learn that as Yehudah is walking through town, he meets his mistress, Niza, who lures him out to the olive groves and ultimately to his death. Niza seems to have a lot of power over Yehudah through his affections for her, but she also seems to be doing Aphranius' bidding. It seems that she is betraying Yehudah (ironically) for Aphranius when she leads him to his death. As it happens, Aphranius is the one who hires the assassins and kills Yehudah. Why? Here's where it gets detailed but i have broken it down into some fun equations:

Woland & Co. + Yeshua & Co. = belief in each respective power.
Woland & Co. - Yeshua & Co. = hell. But if there's no heaven, no religion, and therefore no need for punishment or hell
Yeshua & Co. - Woland & Co. = heaven. But if there's no hell, no religion, and therefore no need for morals, beliefs or heaven

So! It is essential for both parties to maintain a sort of equilibrium, using different means to attain the same ends. This is why Yehudah, the one who betrayed Yeshua, must be punished. That's the whole point of this book; "the devil punishes evil, and not good." the parameters on doing good in the process or rewarding good deeds are undefined. NEXT: Pilate's wandering on the moon rays. He sees Yeshua and remarks how stupid it is that he was crucified given that he is still basically alive. This really seems to be a moment of conversion for Pilate. There is a line! < and that exclamation mark is because I am making this exciting discovery as we speak: Pilate asks Yeshua "Can you, with your intelligence, suppose that the Procurator of Judea would ruin his career over a man who had committed a crime against Caesar?" In context, Pilate is talking about the Rat-Slayer, but that's not all there is to it. His whole speech about cowardice is about himself! It is HE the coward, and he is asking whether he should have ruined his career over Yeshua. And he realises "yes, yes..." he should have. At which point Yeshua says "Now we shall always be together"; the leader and the disciple.

Done. NO WAIT. NOT DONE - here begins the life of the devil, the initiation of the essential balance of good and punished. This procurator, this man who lays down the law, who punishes his people, this man who "whenever I am remembered...[he is] remembered to". Those are Yeshua's words! He tells Pilate this on the moonbeam. Is it not so, that whenever heaven, god, Jesus are remembered, so are hell and Satan? And in the next few lines after Yeshua has said that Pilate will always be remembered when he is, Pilate is described as "the cruel Procurator", which can be a synonym for the devil if we like. Pilate is soon after said to have the eyes of a wolf..., which I’m mentioning not because I've worked that out, but because I cannot... Now on to chapter 27: I think it's very funny that all these people are working to try to rationalise all the events that have passed, when they are so clearly irrational. They use hypnosis as a sort of blanket excuse for people's behaviour and try to use alcohol to explain some other peoples' stories. One of the final pieces of the puzzle that will not come together for them is apartment 50; they can never seem to catch anybody in the apartment. Finally, Behemoth seems to be unable to resist screwing with the visitors (as he certainly has control over the situation, it's not as if they "caught" him there), and stays, proving his immortality by faking his own death and resurrecting himself with benzene (a flammable liquid used for cleaning), and then proceeds to set the entire apartment on fire with it, having a useless gunfight with the visitors. And this must be one of my favourite scenes from the film also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjscgaBh3gM&NR=1 The film is actually stunningly accurate to the book, and definitely worth a watch.

(you can find it on the “little extras” page)
-Powdered Whiskers