The Doll is a novel by Bolesław Prus, which has been adapted into a movie. The film was compared to Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir and is considered one of the finest Polish novels ever written. It tells the story of three generations of Polish idealists who are involved in the history of the nineteenth century.
In the novel, Stanislaw Wokulski is a young man from an impoverished Polish noble family who dreams of a life in science. After participating in the failed 1863 Uprising against Tsarist Russia, he is sentenced to exile in Siberia. On his return to Warsaw, he becomes a salesman at Mincel's haberdashery. Marrying the late owner's widow, he comes into money and uses it to set up a partnership with a Russian merchant he had met while in exile.
The two merchants go to Bulgaria during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, and Wokulski makes a fortune supplying the Russian Army. He now proves a romantic at heart, falling in love with Izabela, daughter of the vacuous, bankrupt aristocrat, Tomasz Łęcki. In his quest to win Izabela, Wokulski begins frequenting theatres and aristocratic salons; and to help her financially distressed father, he finds a company and sets the aristocrats up as shareholders in his business.
The indolence of these aristocrats, who secure their pensions, is too lazy to undertake new business risks, frustrates Wokulski. His ability to make money is respected but his lack of family and social rank is condescended to. Because of his "help" (in secret) to Izabela's impecunious but influential father, the girl becomes aware of his affection. In the end she consents to accept him, but without true devotion or love.
