Long ago he had longed for death when he had too many failures in life ; when he was forced to obey the debased orders of his masters for only a few coins ; when pale faces of children and the violence of the masters had even ceased his belief in God ... yes , life was miserable then , in poverty . Poverty snatches away all the dignity and liberty of man and he becomes the most humiliated creature . But now when he had everything of his desire , death was approaching him with its ever-frothing face . What an irony of fate .
At that fatal moment , he did not feel himself different from the dying dog that he had seen in his childhood , on a hot summer noon . He did not know then that he would recall that death-sight after so many years at the hour of his own death .
He still remembered that the upper part of the neck of that dog was wounded by the gunfire of a rascal hunter and it was severely infected . Steadily , the infection spread into its body and worms started eating him . The writer never saw him sitting anywhere ; he would always run here and there due to his intolerable pain . Nobody cared for the pain of a dog .
One day the dog lay down , accepting the victory of worms . Before dying , he stood up , uttered a feeble , painful cry and then fell to be finished forever .
The dying writer wanted to spend his last moments in pleasant memories but the image of the dying dog had captured his mind and soul . Then he turned his eyes towards the hanging medals and pictures in the room . He recalled the sights and visions of his youth and stopped his sight at one picture : " What a combination of youth and dreams ! My God , if I had a piece of life , I would return to those days of youth when I had a lot of desires and big mountains to climb ," he thought . Now , when he was the most popular writer in the world , he was longing to go back to the days of hunger and miseries . Once again , he wanted to face the pangs of failure and anguish of rejection ; once again he wanted to enjoy the pleasures of the mettle of youth , as among giant evils he used to survive merely because of his colossal will ...
How beautiful was the moment when his beloved gave him a warm kiss on publication of his first story . Remembrance of that sweet kiss - which at once healed all his wounds of deprivations - soothed him for a while in the agonizing feelings of death .
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