The school's austere, vegetarian and dogmatic regimen did not agree with Petrescu, and he escaped in 1935 or 1936; his trace was lost. His 1968 autobiographical novel Zeii prind șoareci ("Gods Chasing Mice") partly sheds light on his bohemian lifestyle in sordid environs. He had descended into vagrancy after moving to Bucharest, where he slept in the homeless shelter, or shared an improvised home with a young woman, known as both Olivia and Maria-Maria, who was dying from tuberculosis. His odd jobs included: occasional porter at Bucharest North railway station, porter and stevedore at Constanța and Brăila, day laborer at Sighișoara. He told several self-aggrandizing stories such as having once visited Paris to meet with Louis Bromfield; when pressed about the details, he responded: "I traveled there by truck, I hardly remember anything, I was drunk the whole time."Stoica, p. 66 Various sources suggest that he engaged in petty theft (of "forks, knives, money"), and that, when caught in the act, he explained that he intended to collect funds for his own statue.Ion Călugăru, "Jurnal (V)", in Caiete Critice, Issue 9/2012, p. 32 For a while, he traveled the Jiu Valley, employed there as a coal miner.Sarău I, pp. 9–10
