56174
I have the following bit of dialogue:

> 儚くて優しい――
>
> どこまでも母親を愛する女の子の事を、
>
> 私はとても好きだったから。

Basically this dialogue is composed of 3 parts, which I have helpfully split
into different lines.

First bit is an adjective nominally meaning "fleetingly kind" which I'lll get
back to.

Second bit describes a daughter that loved her mother despite everything.

Third bit is almost irrelevant to the talk at hand, where the narrator
expresses how much they liked that girl (BTW, the narrator is not the mother).

My question here is, who does the adjective bit (the first bit) refer to? I'm
assuming the mother, because it certainly would fit the context of the mother
who was kind, for only a short while to the girl.

Also am I right in my interpretation of 儚くて優しい that it means to be short-
lively kind to the girl.

**EDIT: Additional context.**

This line is part of recollections of a nanny/teacher of the girl in question.
(well she is actually a magical being that... but that's besides the point,
since her role was to teach the girl) Girl's mother hired her to teach a
certain type of skill to the girl, at which point her contract would be over
and the teacher would depart. The mother in question, never really took to the
girl, and was REALLY cold towards her, even though the girl loved her very
much. So, since the girl was lacking motherly role figure, the nanny, while
she was with the family, kinda took the role of the mother and got attached to
the kid. Which is hardly surprising given that the girl was honest, hard
working, strong etc. But even though she REALLY liked the girl, once her job
was done, once she had taught the girl what she was contracted to teach her,
she HAD to go away.

So now, you might think of this as her end of the line thoughts, she is
looking back at the time with the girl, she is remembering how much she loved
the girl, but is also being sad and worried. Sad that she was never able to
repair the bridge between the mother and daughter, and worried because she was
not given the time to learn what happened of the girl.

OH and YEAH. One kinda important note, the girl DOES/DID remember of a time,
before the nanny when her mother was kind and nice to her, but then suddenly
she almost discarded her and put the teacher to be in charge of her. Note, the
change of attitude happened BEFORE the teacher came. And this weighted heavily
on the girl, who at the time didn't know what caused the change in her
mother's behavior, yet still earnestly wanted to please her despite the cold
treatment. Which is why I thought fleetingly kind was a better description of
the mother than the daughter.

The daughter herself survives it all, despite the abuse that is going to get
worse later on, and escapes and becomes strong, caring and kind individual.
The nanny doesn't know this eventual fate (or about the later abuse, since
while she was there she was a buffer and the mother was just cold, not
outright physically abusive), but saying that girl was insubstantial and
fleeting would be doing her a disservice.

The problem in my mind is that between this adjective and mother is the adverb
どこまでも and it didn't feel right grammatically that the adjective could be
describing an object of an action THROUGH the adverb. Even though context wise
the fleeting bit doesn't really apply to the daughter.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-24T23:12:20.000
56173
2018-01-25T23:59:57.370
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
-1
26839
question
translation interpretation
Need help with interpretation of 儚くて優しい
It's referring to the girl.

The source of your confusion seems to be interpreting

> 儚くて優しい

As "fleeting **ly** kind", but it is " **fleeting** and kind". This is
reinforced by the fact that the immediately following sentence talks about how
nice she was.

> どこまでも母親を愛する女の子の事を、

In regard to `くて` and why I am translating it as "and", see
[here](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/11300/7705) and
[here](http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/compound#Expressing_a_sequence_of_states).

Edit: it is worth noting that 儚い does not always literally mean "short lived",
and can also be used to refer to a certain type of beauty/appeal. See
[here](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/55451/7705).
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-25T00:23:00.010
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2018-01-25T23:59:57.370
2018-01-25T23:59:57.370
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7705
56173
answer