Peter Sidenius is a young, bright, and ambitious man—but like many such men, he is also restless. Knowing life has greatness in store for him, he sets out to study engineering at the University of Copenhagen, leaving his home in 19th–century rural Denmark behind.
“Pete,” as he prefers to be called, is only too eager to get away from his family, particularly his father, a strict, overbearing, and deeply pious Calvinist preacher. Nevertheless, the man has one last gift in store for his son. “This,” he says, revealing an old pocket watch in his hand. “The day I left home, all I had from my father was this watch. For you, in the hope that it can soothe your hardened heart, and open your stubborn mind.” Unimpressed by one more of his father’s countless attempts to guilt him into faith with yet another spiritual lecture, Pete refuses the gift. His father gets angry and slaps him. It would be their final encounter.
Years later, Pete has indeed made a bit of a name for himself. Copenhagen’s high society sees him as a brilliant scientist, and, to an extent, he is. Though overconfident and often arrogant, Pete’s civil engineering plans for transforming Denmark into a more sustainable, richer country find open ears among a rich Jewish family. Taken in by them, he finds not just food, shelter, and the good life, but also the woman of his dreams. “A Fortunate Man,” they call him. All seems to be going well until a telegram arrives: His father has died, and Pete is to return home to Jutland for the funeral. But even this request he ignores.
Peter’s mother, now all alone and gravely ill herself, secretly moves to Copenhagen. When Pete finds out and visits her, she once again presents him with his father’s watch. She tells him that he insisted Pete receive it after his passing. It is here that Pete hears the full story behind the watch for the first time:
“When he was a boy, your father was leaving for boarding school. His father demanded the key to his trunk so he could check what he had packed. The boy took offence. Your father’s pride was wounded. He went off on his journey without a word. When he arrived, that same night, at the school, he opened his little trunk to find that watch you’re holding in your hand. And he realized it was a gift. That it was supposed to be a surprise. Then, he cried his eyes out. And his heart full of repentance, he walked through the night home, where he threw his arms around his father’s neck and begged for forgiveness. That very night was when he found humility. When he found the path to the light, and peace of mind, and the Lord God Almighty.”
Pete is at once deeply moved and conflicted by his mother’s story. Here he was, having made the exact same mistake as his father, a man he had hated all his life, for false pride at the wrong time. Yet here it was, this cursed watch, forever haunting him, still trying to bully him into a life and faith he never wanted.
Pete leaves his mother’s flat abruptly—and the watch on her kitchen counter. Still, he can barely keep himself from throwing up in the next alley. Whatever is happening to him, it’s profound, and he cannot escape it. As if fate herself had called upon him, Pete’s fortunes start to turn. His project goes sideways, then stalls out completely. His relationships with the nobles sour. But perhaps deep down, he already knows: Actually, he is the very own architect of his downfall.
Not long after his visit, Pete’s mother, too, passes away. Once again, he is summoned, this time by his brother in Copenhagen, to attend to his duties as a son. Among her bequeathals, there are two items. One is a letter which, for once, sways Pete and gets him to accompany his mother’s coffin across the sea back to Jutland. As he sits in the ship’s hull next to the wooden box, unfolding the other half of his inheritance, he must already know what’s coming: Once again, he ends up holding his father’s watch in his hand—and finally, for the first time in his life, he attempts to heed its message.
Ready to break free of himself, Pete spends a long time in Jutland. He wanders the rolling hills and gazes out at the sea. He talks to the vicar who held his mother’s funeral service. He reflects on his actions, words, and their consequences, even faces some of his despair. In the end, he returns to Copenhagen only to break all ties, including his engagement, and bury the dreams of his youth for good. Back in Jutland, he builds a small life in the countryside, complete with a wife and three children. He even starts going to church—but through all that time, Pete is still Pete, and the watch is still not satisfied.
One day, in the midst of his son’s birthday lunch, Pete gets up, leaves the house, and disappears. His only errand before his final retreat? Hanging his father’s watch on his tombstone, returning it to whence it came.
Solitude. In his last years before his cancer diagnosis, Pete lives alone. He eats alone, sleeps alone, and works on his construction plans alone. It is a life incompatible with society, and yet, it is the life Pete always needed. His ultimate encounter with his ex-fiancée, to whose charity for children Pete bequeaths what little he has left in savings and helpful engineering documents, is a somber one. But it is a visit during which one thing becomes clear: Peter Sidenius, for all his fortune that wasn’t and the long journey it took to leave anything but himself behind, has at last found peace—and it was all thanks to his father’s watch.