Introduction

Indian Diamonds 171
In combination with the secret societies of The Moonstone and The Sign of Four,
the image of opium metaphorically articulates the fear of infiltration. Opium
shares this ascription with the diamonds in The Moonstone and The Sign of Four as
the “quiet English house” (Collins, Moonstone 43) is colonised by the diamonds. In
“The Rajah’s Diamond” Prince Florizel actually uses the vocabulary of poison and
drugs to describe the influence of the diamond when he says: “I myself, Mr Vandeleur,
could scarce handle the intoxicating crystal and be safe” (Stevenson, “Rajah’”
97) 20. In the same way, Franklin describes the influence of the Moonstone:
“Scattered, disunited – the very air of the place poisoned with mystery and suspicion
[…] The Moonstone has served the Colonel’s vengeance” (Collins, Moonstone
186). The influence of the diamond works to spread fear and disharmony and
poisons relations. Their influence, analogous to the drug, is perceived as corrupting.
The diamonds are, analogous to opium, described as addictive: The Rajah’s
Diamond casts a spell (Stevenson, “Rajah’s“ 130) and binds Thomas Vandeleur to
the Rajah of Kashgar almost as a slave. His “peace of mind” is gone and the desire
for the diamond replaces “honor, reputation, friendship, the love of country”
(Stevenson, “Rajah’s” 130). John Herncastle, too, obsessively pursues the Moonstone
and refuses to give it up, although its possession is dangerous.
The diamonds present a condensed version of the process of Othering. The
properties which are imposed upon them display Orientalist notions current in
nineteenth-century Britain. At this point in time, when anxieties about the future
of the empire grew, the fear and threat of the Other was imagined as contamination,
especially in racial terms: “Despite efforts at containment, the fear of other
cultures, or of the primitive, found its way into texts, cropping up in all manner of
images of contamination, infection, and bewitching” (Boehmer 66, italics in the
original). Opium thus also functions as a metaphor for the fear of corruption
through alien influences.
Oriental substances then not only embody the infection with the native and
Other, but also imply a grander scale than the single body as the site in danger as
they circulate in the national economy. Society as a whole can be infected and
disrupted by being poisoned, a threat ultimately growing from the expansion of
the empire. With the ‘body politic’ as the target of Oriental poison and poisoners,
the reach of this metaphor explains its persistence (Harris 452).
Poison and Murder
In nineteenth-century Britain, poisoning was regarded as a thoroughly Oriental
way of murder. It was perceived as rooted in the eastern flora and fauna which
20 Jean-Pierre Naugrette suggests an etymological reading of the Moonstone as a ‘gift’, a present
and poison at the same time. Opium has the same ambiguous properties as a medicinal and addictive
drug (Nougrette 410-411).