Maugham drove back to Madras the same day. But word of his fainting fit quickly spread through India, with people ascribing it either to Maugham being overcome with awe at the prospect of being in the presence of the holy man, or of Ramana having somehow caused him to become “rapt for a while in the infinite”. The truth was more prosaic. As Maugham later explained, he had been subject to occasional fainting fits throughout his life. It was not an explanation that those wishing to see the Englishman as the beneficiary of Ramana’s divine grace were inclined to believe. “How do I know, they ask me, that I was not rapt in the infinite? To that I do not know the answer, and the only thing I can say, but refrain from saying for fear it will offend them, is that if I was, the infinite is an absolute blank.”