According to literary historian Tudor Vianu, at that stage, the young man began associating with the criminal underworld. He soon established a connection with the French anarchist circles, while also associating with a branch of the growing Symbolist movement. Like others in his generation, he may have been driven by a desire for shocking and morbid experiences. According to art historian Theodor Enescu, these ranged from erotic experimentation to the "boisterous shivers of anarchism", and from criminal enterprise to decadent poetry. Bogdan-Pitești was a presence in the anarchist group of Auguste Vaillant (later guillotined for plotting a terrorist coup), and was possibly acquainted with some of the more prestigious anarchist intellectuals: Élisée Reclus, Laurent Tailhade and (especially influential on him) Félix Fénéon.