Headscratchers / The Man Who Laughs

• Does Gwynplaine take Dea's body with him? The Russian musical version clearly stages it this way and looking at my version of the text it seems you can make a case for it. Gwynplaine is described as walking with his arms out stretched, which would be true if he was carrying the body or if he was doing like the destined walk. And oddly there is no direct mention of Dea's body after the sentence she dies.

• Artistic license aside how exactly is Gwynplaine's mutilation done? I would assume by the time period, you'd have to cut the skin and bind it long enough for scarification to set into whatever form you wanted it to be. That being said in real life I would think this would cause some level of speech impediment or at the very least Gwynplaine would have to learn some ventriloquist tricks to make certain sounds with his unique lip pattern.