Domino Character Analysis

A former circus performer with dwarfism, Domino is recruited as Napoleon Bonaparte’s groom on the recommendation of Napoleon’s wife Joséphine, whom Domino once saved from being trampled by a runaway horse. He retains the position because he is the only groom able to stay on Napoleon’s massive, murderous warhorse. He becomes friends with new recruit Henri and Irish lookout Patrick in Napoleon’s army camp at Boulogne sometime in 1804. When Henri starts a journal to chronicle his feelings about his army experiences, Domino criticizes him, arguing that focusing on the past or future is pointless because only the present exists. At some point during Napoleon’s disastrous 1812 invasion of Russia, Domino survives a terrible facial injury that leaves him unable to speak. Henri asks Domino to desert the army with him. Domino refuses to leave Napoleon’s horses, but he gives Henri a golden necklace he used to wear, which is frozen inside a fantastically cold icicle. Henri carries the icicle with him all the way to Venice, unmelted. When it finally does melt during Henri’s incarceration in the San Servelo asylum, Henri realizes that Domino has died—though Domino’s ghost doesn’t visit Henri as other ghosts do.