Anne playing Elaine and being rescued by Gilbert

Anne playing Elaine and being rescued by Gilbert is a pivotal event in Anne of Green Gables where Anne's romantic imagination leads to a dangerous mishap on the pond, resulting in her rescue by Gilbert Blythe and a crucial turning point in their relationship. This episode, occurring in the summer of Anne's thirteenth year, dramatizes the collision between her cherished fantasies and the unromantic realities of Avonlea, and it sets the stage for the eventual thawing of her long-held grudge against Gilbert.

The Dramatization of Elaine

The event began as an innocent game of make-believe. Anne, Diana Barry, Ruby Gillis, and Jane Andrews, inspired by their study of Tennyson's poem "Elaine" in school the previous winter, decided to dramatize the story of the lily maid. The girls had been spending much of their playtime that summer on and about the pond, having abandoned their playhouse Idlewild after Mr. Bell cut down the birch grove. They had discovered that a flat-bottomed dory, which Mr. Barry kept for duck shooting, could be pushed off from a landing place and drift down the current under the bridge to another headland. Anne, despite her secret regret that she had not been born in Camelot, was the natural choice for the role of Elaine, though she mourned the absurdity of a red-haired lily maid. Ruby Gillis, with her fair hair, would have been more fitting, but Anne was the only one with the courage to lie down and float. The girls procured a black shawl from Diana's mother to serve as the pall of blackest samite, and Jane Andrews arranged Anne on the flat, placing an old piano scarf of yellow Japanese crepe as a cloth of gold coverlet and a tall blue iris in her folded hands as a substitute for a white lily. After the appropriate farewells—"Sister, farewell forever" from Diana and "Farewell, sweet sister" from Ruby—the flat was pushed off, scraping over an embedded stake as it went.

The Peril on the Pond

For a few minutes, Anne enjoyed the romance of her situation to the full, drifting slowly down the pond. But then something decidedly unromantic happened: the flat began to leak. The sharp stake at the landing had torn off the strip of batting nailed to the bottom, and water began pouring through a big crack. Anne, realizing the danger, scrambled to her feet, picked up her coverlet and pall, and saw that the flat would fill and sink long before it could drift to the lower headland. The oars had been left behind at the landing. Anne gave one gasping little scream that nobody heard, but she did not lose her self-possession. She prayed earnestly, but kept her eyes open, knowing that the only way God could save her was to let the flat float close enough to one of the bridge piles for her to climb up on it. Her prayer was answered when the flat bumped into a pile, and she scrambled up onto a providential stub, clinging to the slippery old tree trunk. The flat drifted under the bridge and promptly sank in midstream. Ruby, Jane, and Diana, waiting on the lower headland, saw it disappear and, believing Anne had drowned, shrieked and ran frantically for help, leaving Ruby in hysterics.

The Rescue and the Rejection

Anne clung to the pile, her position growing more uncomfortable as the minutes passed, her imagination suggesting gruesome possibilities. Just as she thought she could endure the ache in her arms no longer, Gilbert Blythe came rowing under the bridge in Harmon Andrews's dory. He glanced up and beheld a little white scornful face looking down at him with big, frightened but also scornful gray eyes. Without waiting for an answer, he pulled close to the pile and extended his hand. Anne, clinging to Gilbert's hand, scrambled down into the dory, where she sat, drabbled and furious, in the stern with her arms full of dripping shawl and wet crepe. She explained frigidly that they had been playing Elaine and that the flat had begun to leak, and she asked him to row her to the landing. Gilbert obliged, and Anne, disdaining assistance, sprang nimbly on shore, thanking him haughtily. But Gilbert had also sprung from the boat and laid a detaining hand on her arm, asking if they could be good friends. He apologized again for making fun of her hair, saying he only meant it for a joke and that he thought her hair was awfully pretty now. For a moment Anne hesitated, feeling an odd, newly awakened consciousness that the half-shy, half-eager expression in Gilbert's hazel eyes was something very good to see, and her heart gave a quick, queer little beat. But the bitterness of her old grievance stiffened her wavering determination. She recalled the scene of two years before, when Gilbert had called her "carrots" and brought about her disgrace before the whole school. She hated Gilbert Blythe and would never forgive him. She said coldly, "No, I shall never be friends with you, Gilbert Blythe; and I don't want to be!" Gilbert, with an angry color in his cheeks, sprang into his skiff and declared he would never ask her to be friends again, pulling away with swift defiant strokes. Anne went up the path, holding her head very high, but conscious of an odd feeling of regret, almost wishing she had answered differently.

Aftermath and Significance

Anne met Jane and Diana rushing back to the pond, having found nobody at Orchard Slope or Green Gables. They were overjoyed to see her alive, and Jane remarked on the romance of Gilbert's rescue, but Anne flashed back that she didn't want to hear the word "romantic" again. She felt sure she was born under an unlucky star, and indeed, the incident led to the loss of Mr. Barry's flat and a presentiment, which proved true, that they would not be allowed to row on the pond anymore. Marilla groaned, "Will you ever have any sense, Anne?" but Anne optimistically declared that she had learned a valuable lesson: today's mistake was going to cure her of being too romantic. She concluded that it was no use trying to be romantic in Avonlea, and that she would soon show a great improvement. Matthew, however, who had been sitting mutely in his corner, laid a hand on Anne's shoulder and whispered shyly, "Don't give up all your romance, Anne—a little of it is a good thing—not too much, of course—but keep a little of it, Anne, keep a little of it." This event marks a significant shift in Anne's relationship with Gilbert. Although she publicly rejects his friendship, the rescue plants a seed of regret and softens her resentment, which later fully dissolves when she realizes she has forgiven him without knowing it. The episode also reinforces the novel's theme of the tension between imagination and reality, as Anne's romantic play leads to a real danger and a lesson in practicality, yet Matthew's counsel preserves the value of her imaginative spirit.