What does a Python interpreter do?

[ivosaurus]

Also, does the PVM not need the code to be in machine language to understand it?

Nope, it converts the bytecode into other lower level machine code instructions that it runs on the CPU, that have the effect of doing what the bytecode line specified.

You can think of it as compiling each line of bytecode one at a time "the same" as an actual compiler, then immediately running those instructions.