Presently there was hardly any one coming aboard, and the sailors began
to undo the lashings of the gangways from the ship's side; files of men
on the wharf laid hold of their rails; the stewards guarding their
approach looked up for the signal to come aboard; and in vivid pantomime
forbade some belated leavetakers to ascend. These stood aside, exchanging
bows and grins with the friends whom they could not reach; they all tried
to make one another hear some last words. The moment came when the saloon
gangway was detached; then it was pulled ashore, and the section of the
bulwarks opening to it was locked, not to be unlocked on this side of the
world. An indefinable impulse communicated itself to the steamer: while
it still seemed motionless it moved. The thick spread of faces on the
wharf, which had looked at times like some sort of strange flowers in a
level field, broke into a universal tremor, and the air above them was
filled with hats and handkerchiefs, as if with the flight of birds rising
from the field.

The Marches tried to make out their son's face; they believed that they
did; but they decided that they had not seen him, and his mother said
that she was glad; it would only have made it harder to bear, though she
was glad he had come over to say good-by it had seemed so unnatural that
he should not, when everybody else was saying good-by.

On the wharf color was now taking the place of form; the scene ceased to
have the effect of an instantaneous photograph; it was like an
impressionistic study. As the ship swung free of the shed and got into
the stream, the shore lost reality. Up to a certain moment, all was still
New York, all was even Hoboken; then amidst the grotesque and monstrous
shows of the architecture on either shore March felt himself at sea and
on the way to Europe.