An old professor with failing eyesight builds a robot named Herr Doktor to read him books that he had never had a chance to read when he was younger. The relationship between the professor and the robot is very close. The books that the robot reads give it the desire to be a complete person. Their roles become reversed. The robot begins to demand that the professor read aloud to him. Later, the robot falls in love with the professor's daughter. When she spurns the robot, it learns that the books it has been reading were wrong and it dies of a broken heart.