June 1937. Vienna.
The city seemed suspended between memory and uncertainty, as if trying to decide whether to wake from a dream or lean further into it.
In the parliament building, what little business remained was ceremonial.
Half the seats sat empty.
Most of the parties had collapsed under their own contradictions monarchists uneasy about independence, socialists wary of Germany yet too broken to resist, conservatives fractured by quiet sympathies with Berlin.
The chamber was cold.
President Miklas sat through three brief sessions and left without comment.
The press called them "hollow days."
One editorial likened the assembly to a theater where no play had been written.
In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, telegrams arrived with increasing regularity from ambassadors abroad.
Paris remained silent, save for one coldly worded message noting "developments of regional concern."
