The Master and Margarita

Pontius Pilate continues to nurse a headache. He cannot shake the feeling he has “lost something irretrievably” (233). His dog Banga seems happy the storm has finished as he licks Pilate’s face. At the same time, Afranius orders his men to take the bodies of the executed men and bury them in unmarked graves. After leaving the palace, Afranius visits a young Greek woman named Niza. She tells him her husband is not home, and he enters the house with her. Five minutes later, he leaves alone. After he departs, Niza also leaves the house. She finds Judas, who has just received the fee he was paid by the high priest for betraying Yeshua. Niza seduces Judas and leads him away from the market. She invites him to join her outside the city walls where she will “listen to the nightingales” (236) singing. Niza tells Judas to meet her in a grotto near some olive trees near the Garden of Gethsemane.

The moonlight illuminates the grotto. Just as “the impatient” (237) Judas arrives, two men accost him. They demand to know how much he was paid to betray Yeshua. Judas hands over the money, begging the men “to spare [his] life” (238).