The Master and Margarita: Chapter 26 Summary & Analysis

As twilight comes on, Pontius Pilate’s headache returns slightly. He thinks to himself that he has “lost something irretrievably,” but tries to dismiss the thought. Pilate whistles, causing his dog, Banga, to come rushing in, panting and licking his master. Banga’s evident joy shows that the storm is over, as storms are the only things he fears. Meanwhile, Aphranius goes to the barracks and orders some of his men to go and bury the executed bodies.

Aphranius then visits a small stone house in the Greek area of the city. Here, he meets with Niza, a beautiful young woman that he knows. She whispers that her husband is not there; Aphranius goes inside and spends five minutes with her. Aphranius leaves. 

Niza gets changed and sneaks out of her house. Meanwhile, Judas visits the high priest Kaifa to receive his money for turning in Yeshua Ha-Nozri. Niza finds Judas near a market place and entices him to follow her, pretending that their meeting is a coincidence. 

Judas wonders where Niza is going, as they had arranged to meet that evening. She says she didn’t want to sit around waiting for him and is going out of town to listen to “the nightingales.” Judas begs to go with her. In an atmosphere of secrecy, Niza takes Judas aside and tells him to meet her at the grotto by the olive groves in Gethsemane—and not to follow at her heels but leave some distance between them. Niza walks on.

Later, Judas arrives at the moonlit grotto, which seems completely deserted. Suddenly, two men appear. They threaten Judas, forcing him to tell them how much money he received from the high priest Kaifa. Begging for his life, Judas hands over the “thirty tetradrachmas.” Just then, one of the men thrusts a knife through Judas’ back all the way to his heart. A third man, wearing a hood, appears, and tells the other two not to “linger.” He gives them a note to attach to the purse containing Judas’ money.

Back at the palace, Pontius Pilate has his bed moved into the moonlight on the balcony. He tries restlessly to fall asleep. Around midnight, he takes off his cloak, puts down a knife that was attached his belt, and eventually drifts to sleep. Banga the dog sleeps on the bed next to him.

Pilate sinks into a blissful dream. In this dream, he walks up towards the moon accompanied by Yeshua. Pilate feels that “there had been no execution,” and that it would be “terrible” to execute “such a man” as Yeshua. They converse, debating intensely but respectfully. Yeshua states that “cowardice” is one of the worst vices; Pilate counters that it is the worst.

Pilate, sobbing in his sleep, promises to Yeshua that he will throw away his career just to save Yeshua’s life, “for the sake of a man who has committed a crime against Caesar.” Yeshua tells him: “Now we shall always be together […] Where there’s one of us, straight away there will be the other!” Pilate asks Yeshua to remember him.

Pilate is woken abruptly by the arrival of Ratslayer, who informs him that Aphranius has come to see him. Pilate instructs Ratslayer to fetch Aphranius and complains that "even by moonlight I have no peace.” Aphranius reports that Judas has been killed and shows Pilate the bloody purse.

Aphranius explains that he has not yet found Judas’s body but assumes that he would have been killed out of town. Pilate wonders how a believer could be lured out of the city on the night of the Passover meal. Aphranius informs him that the purse was thrown over the wall of Kaifa’s palace. Aphranius suggests that Judas may have travelled away from the city in order to hide his money, a theory Pilate likes.

Aphranius adds that no one at Kaifa’s palace will admit to paying Judas any money, which Pilate suggests will make it “much harder to find the killers.” Pilate says that Judas’ death may have been suicide, and that rumor of this will soon get around the city.

The conversation moves on to the burial of the executed bodies. Aphranius explains that Yeshua’s body was no longer on the hill, cut down and stolen by Matthew Levi. Some of his men, continues Aphranius, found Levi cradling the body in a cave. Though Levi was very agitated, the men calmed him by allowing him to participate in Yeshua’s burial.

Pilate says he “needed to see this Matthew Levi,” not realizing that Aphranius has brought Levi to the palace. Pilate thanks Aphranius for “everything that has been done” and gives him a seal ring as a memento. He orders the men who were supposed to be surveilling Judas to be reprimanded, and those who performed the burial to be rewarded.

Once Aphranius is gone, Matthew Levi is brought in to see Pilate. He is muddy and disheveled, wavering on his feet. Refusing a chair, Levi sits on the floor and looks at Pilate contemptuously. Pilate has Ratslayer bring in the knife that Levi used to cut down Yeshua. Levi says that he needs it back in order to return it to the bakery from which it was stolen; Pilate insists that they will return it for him.

Pilate orders Levi to show him the parchment scrolls on which he has written about Yeshua. Pilate can’t make sense of what he reads, seeing “an incoherent chain of certain utterances, certain dates, household records, and poetic fragments.”

Pilate offers Levi work in the great library at Caesarea, which Levi rejects. Pilate then offers him money, which Levi also refuses. Levi says that Pilate wouldn’t be able to look him in the face having ordered Yeshua’s death. Pilate retorts that Yeshua had said that “he did not blame anyone” just before he died, and that, if Yeshua were in Levi’s position, he would have accepted something from Pilate.

Levi gets up suddenly and leans over Pilate’s table, stating that he is going to “kill a man in Yershalaim.” Levi says he knows he can’t kill Pilate but will devote his life to killing Judas of Kiriath. Pilate informs him that Judas has already been killed and, furthermore, it was he, Pilate, who committed the murder.