But mark the skill of Hauptmann. After she is left alone her dreams begin to assume a more definite shape, and then we, sitting in the darkened auditorium, see Mattern, the mason, her brute of a stepfather, as a vile nightmare. He acts and speaks to the little form on the bed as he would in real life, and it writhes in agony, and finally Hannele, her brain on fire with the hideous vision, awakens to his call, and jumps tremblingly out of bed, rushes into a corner for shelter, and there faints. The return of Sister Martha, the replacing of Hannele on her couch, are followed by the further progress of the fever and delirium. Being alone, a vision of her mother appears. It is the most striking of the play. Her mother consoles her, speaks of heaven in tender and lofty imagery, and hints at her suffering while alive, and just grazes the subject of Hannele's birth. Her suspected father is the examining magistrate Berger, but the idea is lightly dwelt upon--sufficiently, however, to give us a glimmer of the truth and adding a deeper accent to the gloom. Hannele's mother was hounded to her death as was this child. Her body, as we know by the testimony of the wood-cutter, Seidel, was a mass of bruises after death. The interview between mother and daughter is solemn and yet piteously human. The poor child cries aloud after the fading figure and later shows with joy to Sister Martha the supposed flower, Golden Sesame, which her mother gave her. Then this tiny waif of the gutter becomes light-headed and sings of flowers, of her teacher, and of the angels she has seen. From this delirious state she never recovers, and her dreams take on a darker tinge in the second part of the play.