The first wife of Vadim Vadimovich (the hero and
narrator of Look at the Harlequins!) is Iris
Black.
In his memoir essay The Literary Evening at P. A.
Pletnyov's (1869) Turgenev describes Pletnyov's guests and mentions the
so-called "harlequin" (of different colors) irises of one of
them:
адъютант в жандармском мундире, белокурый,
плотный мужчина с разноцветными (так называемыми арлекинскими)
зрачками
It was at this evening in the beginning of 1837 that the
eighteen-year-old Turgenev met Pushkin (who dedicated to Pletnyov his Eugene
Onegin) for the first (and second
to last) time.
Alexey Sklyarenko