What is the main theme of the excerpt?

Read this excerpt from Guy de Maupassant's "Mother Savage" about an old woman who takes in four Prussian soldiers while her son is away fighting in the French army:

But the old woman thought always of her own son, so tall and thin, with his hooked nose and his brown eyes and his heavy mustache which made a roll of black hair upon his lip. She asked every day of each of the soldiers who were installed beside her hearth: "Do you know where the French marching regiment, No. 23, was sent? My boy is in it."

They invariably answere

Question

What is the main theme of the excerpt?

Read this excerpt from Guy de Maupassant's "Mother Savage" about an old woman who takes in four Prussian soldiers while her son is away fighting in the French army:

But the old woman thought always of her own son, so tall and thin, with his hooked nose and his brown eyes and his heavy mustache which made a roll of black hair upon his lip. She asked every day of each of the soldiers who were installed beside her hearth: "Do you know where the French marching regiment, No. 23, was sent? My boy is in it."

They invariably answere