Tolstoy's Ivan Ilyich looks at life through eye of suffering

Below is a quote from Leo Tolstoy's 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich'.

The words are spoken by Ilyich as he lies ill in bed.

Life is a series of increasing sufferings, speeds swifter and swifter to the end, and the end - the most terrible suffering.....yet if only I could understand what it is all for. Even that's impossible.