there was always , even in his prime , a childishness about the monstrumologist , as if part of him were frozen in that time prior to his mother 's death , the little boy who simply stopped , who could not free himself from the ice , who lived on in the man , forgotten and alone , but whose cries broke free from time to time , like those of the boy he inherited , the boy he tucked away in the attic room , all three of them-the boy , the man , and the boy inside the man-trapped in the judeccan ice .