On a Liberia-bound cargo ship Graham Greene meets a young German couple who boarded as deck passengers at Funchal. From what I can ascertain, the husband could be the painter Mathias Alten (self-portrait above), though Alten is almost too old for Green to describe him as "young" in 1935. On page 26, Greene writes:
He was a bad artist, but he wasn't a bogus one. He lived on almost nothing; he believed in himself and his hazy Teutonic ideas; and there was a sensual beauty in their relationship. The two lived in a kind of continuous intimacy, she had no ideas but his, no vitality but his; he supplied all the life for both of them and she supplied a warm friendly sensual death; they shared the universe between them. All the time, in the cabin, at dinner, at a cafe table, they gave the impression of having only just risen from bed.
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