How does Leo Tolstoy use imagery in The Death of Ivan Ilych?

Imagery:

Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.

It is as if I had been going downhill while I imagined I was going up. And that is really what it was. I was going up in public opinion, but to the same extent life was ebbing away from me. And now it is all done and there is only death.