The whole town was in a panic, for the cholera was coming nearer and nearer and had reached the neighbouring province.
I may observe that satisfactory sanitary measures had been, so far as possible, taken to meet the unexpected guest.

But the factory belonging to the Shpigulins, who were millionaires and well-connected people, had somehow been overlooked.

And there was a sudden outcry from every one that this factory was the hot-bed of infection, that the factory itself, and especially the quarters inhabited by the workpeople, were so inveterately filthy that even if cholera had not been in the neighbourhood there might well have been an outbreak there.

Steps were immediately taken, of course, and Andrey Antonovitch vigorously insisted on their being carried out without delay within three weeks.

The factory was cleansed, but the Shpigulins, for some unknown reason, closed it.
One of the Shpigulin brothers always lived in Petersburg and the other went away to Moscow when the order was given for cleansing the factory.
The overseer proceeded to pay off the workpeople and, as it appeared, cheated them shamelessly.