"Having, to the best of my ability, given you my reasons for the step I am about to take, it only remains for me to ask your pardon for the distress it may cause you. If my health were less uncertain, I would rather beg from house to house that touch a pin that belonged to you. But feeble as I am, and hopeless of getting anything from you, I have been obliged, in order not to die on the road, to take what is absolutely necessary for my existence. I am deeply grieved, and it almost makes me waver in my resolution when I think of the sorrow I shall cause you, knowing your kindness of heart and all your endeavours to make us contented with our lot. For those endeavours I am grateful from the bottom of my heart, and it is agony to me to think that I shall appear infected with the vice of ingratitude which I abhor more than anything else. Only the difference in our principles which was in no way to be overcome, and which would necessarily end either in my dying here of desperation, or in my taking to flight as I am doing, has been the cause of all my unhappiness. It has pleased Heaven for our punishment that the only young men in this town who had thoughts above the ordinary level of Recanati, should be born to you to try your patience and that the only father who looked upon such sons as a misfortune, should be allotted to us. That which consoles me is the thought that this is the last annoyance I give you, and that it will free you from my unwelcome presence. My dear father, if you will allow me to call you by that name, I kneel down before you, and pray you to pardon one so unhappy by nature and by circumstances. I would that my unhappiness were my exclusive property and that nobody might share it with me, and so I trust it will be in the future. If fortune ever makes me the possessor of anything my first thought shall be to replace what I have now taken from you. The last favour that I ask of you is that if ever you recall to your memory your wretched son who has always venerated and loved you, you will not curse him; and that if you cannot praise him, you will, at least, bestow upon him that compassion which is granted even to malefactors."