A famous surgeon is beaten by drunken bullies, loses his memory and cannot recollect who he was before. He gets to a village, lives in a not so well to do family and becomes the Quack - he slowly regains his talent for medicine and saves the lives of several village patients.
Historical novel by Boleslaw Prus . The problem of the Polish population displacement from their land within the limits of the Prussian partition. Germans come to the village harassing a wealthy peasant Snail, leading to the tragedy. Slug's cottage burns, his wife dies. The peasant does not give up, defending his inheritance. He sticks on a patch of his Polish soil and protects it like a soldier his post.
The love story of Stanisław Połaniecki and the beautiful Marynia Pławicka, set in the scenery of manor houses and Warsaw from the end of the 19th century.